001foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign thank you foreign um yeah it's amazing [Music] um [Music] ready yep good evening and welcome to the July 6 Board of Education meeting just um the board had been an executive executive session since 7 PM 6 p.m discussed two legal matters two contractual matters and Personnel issues next can you stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the black flag of the United States one nation under God indivisible with liberty introductions Dave Hurst John Walston capernado Jody Monroe Brittany Barrett Holly dellenbaugh Robert Teigen John McPhillips tonight Willow bear and Ewan McNay are absent um next is oath of office for district officers the first action item is recommended that by the superintendent that the
002Board of Education approved the following appointment of officers action items one through seven second it's first in a second all in favor aye any opposed any extensions that item parents next in is swearing of the district clerk um John McPhillips is going to do that for me right there yeah you solemnly swear I do solemnly swear I will support the Constitution of the United States of America but I will support the Constitution of the United States of America and the constitution of the state of New York and the constitution of the state of New York and that I will Faithfully discharge and I will Faithfully discharge according the best of my ability according to the best of my ability did you the office of the duties of the office of District Court District Clerk next
003is our swearing-in of newly elected board members we have two out of three here today I will do humans when he is back and before the 30 days which he's required to do in his role so first in alphabetical order I will do Holly your new term beginning on July 1 2023 and goes until June 30th 2026. I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America of the United States of America and the constitution of the state of New York and the constitution of the state of New York and I will Faithfully discharge and that I will Faithfully discharge for the best of my ability to the best of my ability the duties of the office of Board of Education member the duties of
004the office of Board of Education member there it is I do solemnly swear I just solemnly swear but I will support the Constitution that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America the United States of America and the constitution of the state of New York and the constitution of the state of New York and that I will Faithfully discharge and that I will Faithfully discharge according to the best of my ability according to the best of my abilities the duties of the office of Board of Education member the duties of the office of Board of Education next on the agenda is oath of office for the superintendent Miss Jody Monroe I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear but I will support the Constitution but I will support the Constitution of the
005United States of America the United States of America and the constitution of the state of New York and the constitution of the state of New York and I will Faithfully discharge and I will Faithfully discharge according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability the duties of the office of superintendent duties of the office of superintendent foreign election of officers at this time for board presidency I would request any nominations for the position of board president for the 2023-2024 school year I'd like to nominate Holly any other nominations for this role Holly do you accept your peers nomination for this thank you do you have anything you'd like to say I do thank you for putting your trust in me um can I have uh so it is recommended that
006the Board of Education take a vote on the nomination of Holly dellenbaugh for the Board of Education president for the 2023-24 school year so I need another motion to put that into place and a second second and all in favor any opposed any abstentions that native carries I'm going to pass the Baton over to president ellenbaugh to complete the rest okay again I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear and I will support the Constitution that I will support the Constitution the United States of America of the United States of America and the constitution of the state of New York and the constitution of the state of New York and that I will Faithfully discharge and that I will Faithfully discharge according to the best of my ability according to the best of my ability
007the duties of the office of Board of Education presidents the duties of the office of Board of Education president please [Applause] at this point I would request any nominations for the position of board vice president for the 2023-2024 school year I'd like to nominate Meredith Moriarty the second second are there any other nominations Meredith do you accept the nomination yes thank you very much um so at this point it is recommended that the Board of Education vote on the nomination of Meredith Moriarty for Board of Education vice president for the 2023-2024 school year so I moved second all in favor all right I any opposed that carries and I have to swear you won't know I do solemnly swear I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States of America
008and the Constitution and the constitution of the state of New York and that I will Faithfully discharge and that I will thank for this church according to the best of my ability bring the best of my ability the duties of the office office of Board of Education vice president of Board of Education vice president foreign next on our agenda is our selection of Board of Education committees and Community liaison representatives and I I didn't solicit feedback from all of our Board of Education members prior to the meeting to figure out what made the most sense where it put people so I can report back on that and I think I have everybody where they wanted to be so I'll read through them if at the end if you object just say so let me know
009so for facilities I have John Catherine and Bob for audit I have Bob Ewan and Willow for policy I have Catherine Meredith and myself for the bcta process committee I have Meredith and Willow for the BC UEA process committee I have John and Ewen and then um as the board representative on the district Wellness committee um I have John does that work for everybody can I just ask a question um requisite member or requisite number we need to per committee or we need three is there what is the threshold level we the threshold level would be two um it tends to work best to have three for those three major committees so that way if somebody is absent there are still two people right um and then I um I will fill in for facilities
010or policy if we need an extra person thank you are there any other District level committees that we need to put a person on uh not that I'm aware of but um right everybody okay with those yes and I did confer with both Willow and you and um um prior to the meeting okay so item seven other annual appointments and designations a are 2023 2024 annual District appointments it is recommended by the superintendent at the Board of Education approve the following other appointment action items one through 17. so moved second any discussion I just have a question about 17 is that a I just an action item yeah I just saw that that's there's no item there right it should be 1-16 what should be one sorry let's do that again it is recommended by
011the superintendent to the Board of Education approve the following other appointment action items one through 16. second uh any discussion all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions that carries B 2023 2024 annual District action items it is recommended by the superintendent of the Board of Education approve the following annual contractual action items one and two mode any discussion all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions that carries C 2023 2024 annual designations it is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approved the following designation action items one through three so move second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions that carries D 2023 2024 annual authorizations it is recommended by the superintendent of the Board of Education approve the following authorization action items one through seven so we've second
012any discussion Yeah question yep I think I asked this last year as well but just for the sake of asking again we're authorizing uh petty cash funds of a hundred dollars for chief business office and food department Athletics at this day and age is that still a sufficient amount to have on hand does that does that cover when you need to cover things 100 isn't what it used to be but we're using much um the district-wide credit cards a lot for those ancillary purchases so okay sufficient yeah great thank you favor opposed any abstentions that carries e bonding a Personnel it is recommended by the superintendent the Board of Education approved the following appointment of bonding of personnel action items one through three any discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions that carries um
013item eight we need to do our annual policy approvals um but first we will hold our public hearing on the code of conduct so tonight we are holding the public hearing on our proposed Revised Code of Conduct as required by education law at this time I invite any members of the public to speak who wish to offer up comments either for or against on the proposed policy I ask that you please state your name for the record prior to offering your remarks seeing no commenters I hear hereby close our public hearing on the code of conduct and we'll move on to be our annual policy approvals it is recommended the Board of Education approve the following policy action items one through three send this second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed any extensions
014that carries item nine approval of minutes it is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approved the minutes from the June 21st 2023 regular board meeting a second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions that carries item 10 meeting reports and first up is our superintendent's report sure thank you um so for tonight's superintendent reports uh our athletic director Mr Keys is here to recognize some of our spring athletes thanks for coming tonight on your summer vacation I'm glad some of our athletes could make it so I'm going to turn it over to him thank you very much hope everyone's Summers off to a good start thank you ladies for toughing it out tonight and my Gentleman here uh another outstanding season in our Athletic program highlighted by the Springs
015outstanding performances so first group I'd like to bring up is I'd like to mention our boys tennis doubles state representatives uh they came in third place in sectionals part of our 14 in one regular season undefeated Council regular season Champions uh ADI oja come on down buddy there you are congratulations and his men boys are coached by Steve Smith and assisted by Dylan Davis congratulations I believe our girls track and field State qualifier section Champion Lindsey farmer believe she's away with her family on vacation I wanted to mention though Lindsay has wrapped up an outstanding career she'll be continuing her academic and athletic career at University of Albany was a late commit so congratulations uh to Lindsay sure if any of Coach Mooney's unified athletes are here or any of Coach Mooney's athletes here with
016us tonight no uh well they wrapped up an outstanding season they were finalists in their division they've won three of the last five they are kind of Mr Mooney likes to refer to himself as the general manager they are coached by Paige Davenport Anna Walston Hannah Lowenstein and Kelsey Von wheat also congratulations to them did outstanding job and now this group with the really loud orange tie dye and other our girls lacrosse program over the last several years has become a true dominant force not only in our league in our section but really in the state it's our second visit in the last few years and if it wasn't for kovid I'm pretty confident we'd have a State title downstairs but this group is an outstanding group 16-4 was their overall record 10-0 regular season
017undefeated section two championship as they defeated disc una 12-6 in the finals defeated a tough Yorktown team 7-6 in our sub-regional defeated Minnesota Valley 9-6 in our regional before our uh our state semi-final game versus uh an incredibly talented Victor team who wound up being the Champions our team is coached by Danny Blanchard and assisted by Aaron Jones so you can wave to us here Aaron [Music] [Applause] is responsible for having all the lollipops in the capital region um I'm gonna rename all our girls I know some of them are missing some are here there were so many different postseason awards for this group uh that they need to be heard I'm going to start off with uh Maeve Maeve Conway come on up Suburban Council and a Times Union first team All-Star and an
018All-American outstanding year Gabby crowland Gabby was a Suburban Council second team All-Star you get one too uh Addison Daggett Suburban Council honorable mention All-Star Natalie desanti congrats Natalie Riley Donovan Riley will be continuing her career at Clarkson next year Avery Ike Avery was a Suburban Council and a first-team All-Star Times Union second Brianna Fabian Suburban Council second team All-Star congratulations Alexis Hartson Sophie Klein who's one of our captains will be continuing next year at Lemoine [Applause] Ellie Kaplan [Applause] Caroline Morata Caroline Caroline was a Suburban Council first team All-Star Times Union first team All-Star and our second All-American this year [Applause] congrats Nina pauella Nina Nina is a Times Union first team All-Star Suburban Council first team All-Star and continuing next year at Johns Hopkins Kirsten Fang congratulations Kirsten also was a member of our
019girls tennis team that went to States George is calling me right now about it uh Violet picanini Violet is going to be continuing next year at SUNY Geneseo uh Catherine qualier we totally faked out Kate Lauren Civic Kate Teigen cage is a first team Times Union All-Star a first-team Suburban Council All-Star Kate's committed to Marist um and Maddie Ward and Maddie Ward our goaltender sophomore celebrity Council second team All-Star uh worth noting that Danny Blanchard was elected by the Adirondack region USA lacrosse as the All-American coach of the year as well so just an outstanding outstanding come on [Music] here we go thank you congratulations thank you congratulations everyone August 21st the machine starts back up for fall we gotta stick yeah look thank you thanks for coming guys that's all for my superintendence report
020Catherine um I just also wanted to say that the a lot of the lacrosse athletes who were here were also coaching last week at the booster club summer camp sorry words are not coming to me easily right now um and they were just fantastic and I know that we've got athletes from all different sports who participate in those and help bring up our younger newer athletes in the district and it's just really wonderful and so I'm grateful to them and hats off and that was amazing uh next up is the board report um and um I would I just wanted to comment on graduation um I thought it was a a terrific ceremony and I loved seeing all the kids coming up and walking through and um and I just wanted to give a thank
021you to everybody behind the scenes who made it happen because I know it's a lot of work to put the commencement together so thank you to all those people does anyone have anything else yeah I'll second that I thought the the graduation was was quite quite well run it went off without a hitch there's a lot of nice positive energy I thought the kids were great um and you know it heads off to the venue too I thought it worked out nicely so congrats to all involved somebody else um next is our recognition of public comment on an agenda item if we have anybody who'd like to address the board on an agenda item now would be the time to come to the microphone my name is Jan sinisky I worked for the district for
02229 years as na to students with disabilities I retired two years ago and I was asked to be the sub caller for the district I don't know if this time I should be speaking but anyway I saw that we came out with the financial part of raising a certain job by the hour hourly rate and I noticed that the sub caller was not raised I don't know if people realize what's involved with the sub color position um but I'll just give you a brief overall so my job starts sometimes at 5 30 in the morning the high school and middle school whoever is out that day text me or emails me and then I have a list of Subs that I ask if they are interested I text them also then for the elementary school
023I have to do a Google Calendar which is every month and on that Google Calendar they go in secretaries and fill out who the employee is that's going to be out that day um so but the job is a six day a week job it starts on Sunday night and um the out I noticed the hourly increase on most jobs but not on this particular job another thing that has happened is when I have found Subs they go to the school and they send them home and there's no compensation for those subs either once they've arrived you know let's say Susie's out today I get a sub for her and they arrive and then a lot of times they'll send them home on average I'm looking for 20 plus Subs every day I've gone in
024and subbed because we've been so short we are getting a better list of Subs but I do feel that the compensation for this job should definitely be higher since we've raised the other ones also on that anyone has any questions or about the job thank you thank you uh item 12 action items a finance action items it is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education approve the following Finance action items one through eight [Music] any discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions that carries be professional Personnel action items it is recommended by the superintendent of the Board of Education approve the following professional Personnel action items 1 through 18. um second any discussion all in favor I any opposed any abstentions that carries C support Personnel action items it is recommended by
025the superintendent at the board of education to prove the following support staff action items one through seven seconds any discussion all in favor any opposed any abstentions that carries D other action items it is recommended by the superintendent that the Board of Education to prove the following action items one through five so I moved second any discussion all in favor aye any opposed any abstentions that carries I'd um 13 recognition of public comment on a non-agenda item if we have any visitors who would like to address the board on a non-agenda item now would be the time to come to the microphone and if you could please state your name for the record sure hi everyone I was here last time and I revealed to all of you that I was super nervous I'm feeling
026a little less nervous today so I'm glad to be back my name is Kate rosebabson I'm a resident of the Bethlehem School District I have a soon to be third grader at hamagram and a four-year-old who's going to be starting kindergarten in the fall of 2024. and I did want to start by thanking all of you for all that you do I know you have a huge job I was looking at some of the policy documents that I know you review and there's a lot of them so um thank you for what you do um so at the last board meeting I thanked Dr Ellis Williams for the tremendous work she had done during her time in Bethlehem oh and I did want to thank Holly and um Jody thank you for answering my emails
027individually I really appreciate um that you're so communicative so at the last meeting I came specifically to talk to all of you but to thank thank Dr Ellis Williams for the work she had done during her time in Bethlehem and I also asked all of you to commit to hiring and supporting a new Chief diversity equity and inclusion officer and I understand that you're currently Gathering feedback from staff about this role and deciding how best to move forward I hope that you'll also talk to students parents and other stakeholders who worked with Dr Ellis Williams as you make these decisions um as I said I looked at some policy documents for this meeting I spent some time on the school's website and there really is a lot of information there and I found a link
028to an article from 2020 that was titled a high school turns to former students to address racism on campus which was as you all know about Bethlehem High School in the article um one of those School administrators was quoted as saying until alumni spoke up staff were unaware How Deeply structural racism had become ingrained in the culture of the school and I was really impressed that the school had done so much listening to students and had really an alumni and had let them like lead the way with addressing racism and diversity equity and inclusion issues and I want to say that listening and learning from and believing students families staff and community members when they talk about the racism and discrimination that they have experienced it and are experiencing in the schools is an essential
029component of this work and I hope that you all continue to do that I'm related to this I noticed in the school's anti-racism policy that it specifically outlined that the district would support and sustain district-wide equity and inclusion committees to strengthen dialogue regarding anti-racist initiatives and also that the district would establish an organization or Committee of students parents and staff to promote anti-racism equity and diversity and to serve as Leaders within the district and I did notice earlier on when you're talking about district-wide committees that a board of education member would be appointed to that this committee wasn't brought up um I was one of the questions I'd asked of this group and superintendent Monroe was just what what were the next steps for the parent and guardian work groups and so I am really
030interested in knowing how those will proceed while we don't have a chief Dei officer and then again hopefully when we do so um just a little bit more I participated in the bridging The Divide workshops in um and I'm now involved in the parent Guardian groups at Dr Ellis Williams was leading I really hope that in addition to hiring a new Chief Dei officer and making time and space for them to achieve there and the district's goals that the district and the board will continue to provide opportunities for the community students staff and other stakeholders to tell their stories and engage with leadership to inform Dei efforts moving forward I also hope that the district and this board will commit to fulfilling everything that is outlined in the district's anti-racism policy I really do look
031forward to learning more about the district's plan to continue this work their plan to support a new Chief Dei officer the plan to continue to engage with students deaf parents and caregivers and community members so that we can accomplish the Dei at Vision that is outlined on the website and so that Bethlehem Central School District truly is and to quote the vision and environment in which all members of our school Community feel free to engage as their authentic selves in an atmosphere of mutual respect and civility thank you hi good evening everyone I'll be brief my name is Laura de betta I'm a parent of I realized I need to say soon to be fourth grader I was going to say third grader at Hammer Grail Elementary School I'm also a member of hammer Grails
032PTA Dei committee was also a member of the bridging The Divide groups as well and I'm really here to amplify what Kate Rose has expressed and also expressed my strong support for filling the position of the chief Dei officer role as quickly as possible preferably preferably before the start of the new school year also just want to express that in my experience positions that are charged with leading and affecting change in large institutions they need to be at the leadership level and so I hope this position is going to stay as part of the district leadership change really has to come through leadership and through the support of leadership and like Kate Rose said I also understand that an assessment is being done of of the position by reaching out to staff but really the
033district your mission is to serve students and parents and teacher parents and residents of the district so I really encourage you to reach out to students and parents and Guardians for their experience as well particularly the parent groups as well as students of color and other marginalized students that Dr Ellis Williams was able to develop relationships with during her time you know and talking to some of the families she helped some of these students feel seen and heard for the very first time so their experience with the position really needs to be part of the assessment and the evaluation of how that position proceeds so moving forward I would be interested to know what that plan is to solicit feedback and would really appreciate that the board kept the the residence apprised of the process
034and just Dei efforts in general it wouldn't be bad practice to have Dei as a standing agenda item for board education meetings thank you uh our next item 14 future meetings and events our next board meeting is on August 16th um anticipating an executive session starting at six and reconvening to open session at seven and then our meeting after that is September 6th again anticipating executive session at six and reconvening to open session at seven note that on Wednesday September 13th at six o'clock we have a board of education Retreat on the calendar that's the off Wednesday in between our two meetings in September um seeing no need to go back into executive session could I have a motion to adjourn the meeting so moved all in favor aye meaning adjourned over