001m 5 10 15 20 25 30 3540 2 4 68 who do we appreciate Andrew Andrew anything check 1 2 3 4 5 6 don't forget to tip your waitress just we got it a b c d e f g you got it you're good excellent was it sitting at OBS or what I don't know what it was doing but it here for that for in for in for that for that for [Music] for in for he for yeah I mean a little crazy than e [Music] know [Music] hi your hair looks very nice thank you thanks color tomorrow night always I know she was just ask a building well she's over there red red shirt she's over there and she's thinking about I told her we don't need the money and I'd be happier
002if she didn't do but she'll make up her own that's and she loves doing so my guess is probably doing no not really I had hand surgery yes I had hand surgery it went really well it was it was you know it was healing very nicely until I you know put my hand down really hard on something and scrap myself today yes and I have a goose egg on my shin too from it that was uncal heing good I don't see everything going okay with you guys oh there she is she's behind she yeah and maybe think just do the reminders to pull up something yeah maybe's it's a big book for our Retreat well a lot of its notes and bibliography in the back so don't it's really not this the sections are not
003that bad believe me but she has to notate everything I'm excited to read it though yeah it's a good oh well I originally read it 20 years ago you read this 20 years ago yeah it was a 19 97 book I was still teaching I was still in the classroom that was when all Jonathan coel stuff was coming out back then too Savage inequalities was out around then but that was just it was kind of when people were really noticing that kids were being segregated by ZIP codes that's interesting and that we were G to have more that demographics were pointing towards U Public School becoming more not white not Pure White and so that's been all IFI yeah oh well I'm looking forward to and it's only you know deepen and intensified since then
004and then and then she also adds in a few things about what's going on now like oh because 2016 it's very the whole intro is really good can uh reconvene our meeting to open session the board has been in executive session since 6 o00 to discuss a pending legal matter disciplinary matters and contractual matter um if we could all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance Pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all if we could start with introductions Dave Hurst Willow bear Wendy Samson Christine Beck jod Monroe Holly delen ball Meredith morard Chris Meyer Jonathan fishbine and Judy kho uh next on the agenda is our approval of the minutes it is recommended that
005the Board of Education approve the minutes from the August 12th 2020 regular board meeting so moved second any discussion all in favor I I any opposed any extensions that carries next on our agenda is our presentation um on the 2020 2021 budget impact based on state aid reductions um by Judy kho okay am I in your way Jude no that's fine Britney's going to put it on the big screen there in presentation mode so should be available to everybody there has been a whole lot of media attention going on over the last uh few weeks about Aid reduction so we thought it would be helpful to do a quick overview for everybody um we are glad that we can focus on our mission because it kind of keeps us going towards the North Star here
006when we're swirling with all of the uh the changes that we're looking at so um about a week and a half ago we received an aid payment in June that was reduced by 20% um we had expected to have a 20% reduction when we had adopted the budget and we expected that that was going to come out of our foundation Aid we had planned for about a $2.6 million reduction we thought we were being conservative we um increased it up to $3 million and we made the decision to fund that shortfall with the charge to fund balance knowing that this Aid reduction happened in June unexpectedly it actually went to another Aid category outside of our foundation Aid so um that we still don't know whether it's delayed or whether it's not coming at all
007the state is indicating that it is dependent on whether or not they get federal aid but if it's coming out of all Aid categories of course that is a much greater impact to our budget and it would be closer to $6 million there's other uncertainty swirling around that because there have been some discussions that Questar has made us available or shared with us where they have talked with um s where they're looking at other changes in the formulas they were talking about if an aid payment had a statutory due date they would withhold the 20% but if there was no statutory due date they would withhold 100% of the amount so there's all sorts of formulas swirling around but that number could be closer to $8 million so um it's significant and we don't know
008yet what that will look like the next slide shows what we had estimated for our state aid um on the far right column you can see the reduction in the $3 million which is what we estimated lowering our Aid to 26 one we still have no idea what that final number will be but what is breaking news for us is that the actual Aid in 1920 is lower by about $150,000 in that other Aid items line item so you can see we were pretty close with our projections for all of the aid categories except for those other miscellaneous Aids on the next slide the terms that we've listed here you've all seen before from the prior years of reduction so whether the state is calling it The Dr the deficit reduction assessment Gap elimination adjustment
009they've got all sorts of different ways of referring to it but at the end of the day it really doesn't matter what they call it or what formulas they use we will receive what they are able to remit to us so um we have quite a bit of uncertainty in that regard the do is supposed to provide a detailed plan to school districts that will lay out what this will look like hopefully answer some of these questions and that's not due until the end of the month so until then we'll really just keep an eye on it and uh wait and see what the impacts are um we just got word that another Aid payment is due in next week and that too will will also have the 20% withholding so that in and of
010itself isn't shocking all other local governments have had reductions in their aid around that amount to but it is significant um to our bottom line um one of the other things if you go to the next slide that um has been bandied about in the media are some changes in state laws that are designed to give some more budget flexibility uh for school districts one of them is to allow you to take a loan against your own funds by drawing on your reserves via a loan to cover your covid costs why is it via a loan I'm confused like do you have to you have to pay back the restricted Reserve so when all of those reserves were created whether it was the ERS Reserve TRS reserve the money went in and by law is
011supposed to be used for the stated purposes so their cash flow flexibility is saying you can tap into it while you're having a financial hardship but you need to pay it back and with interest with interest with a reasonable interest rate did they give you a timeline for how long that should take or um you know I would I don't remember seeing a timeline in it um but I think as long as it's outstanding you have to pay the interest so I think the ultimate question will be how long are we potentially in a bind to seven years so the bottom bullet relates to bond anticipation notes which is short-term financing so what they did there was they said oh if you're having problems making your debt service payments you can extend your term right
012now it's limited to 5 years and this new law let you move that out to seven years but those notes are all held by Third parties whether they're underwriting firms or Banks or whatever so so that may help you one year to next in your budget but ultimately it's going to cost the district and ultimately taxpayers more money because you're just extending the amount of time that you have to pay interest on so these are tools but I would say we would have to be in a much different place where we to want to take advantage of these we have a few other higher priority or higher benefit options available to us before we would get into this component okay so if you go to the next slide this shows you what our actual un
013audited fund balance and Reserve amounts are as of June 30th which is what we had put out there at the last board meeting with the exception of the second line from the bottom the undesignated portion of our fund balance is at 3.8 million and that is down largely based on that state aid reduction of about 150,000 so um that lowers that number to 3.68% typically we try to have that up closer to 4% which is our maximum amount so it's lower but it's still within a healthy range but it is different than what we had um covered at the last meeting okay so lastly I don't want you think that there's cause for fiscal panic in the district by any means but these prospects of the aid reductions are certainly concerning and especially if it
014goes on longer than one year we entered this year in pretty strong financial position so I I think we're able to weather these reductions at least into the coming year and depending on the magnitude of where we land with it will'll really determine what other actions we may have to take ultimately so in the meantime we're continuing to conserve cash whenever we are in a a period of fiscal uncertainty we hold off on expenditures that are not essential if we have any vacancies we'll leave those unfilled as long as we can um there are certain um Project based expenditures for instance in onm that we're holding off on until we have a better sense of what our ultimate Financial hit will be we can tap into the reserves that we have for the stated purposes
015so that with board approval ultimately becomes a source of funds for us and if we get really in a pinch we can look at those loans uh from the reserves and we also have that fund balance even though it's below the 4% down to 3.68 that is a place that we can tap into as well for shortterm impacts so not great news but um we still don't have answers to all the questions so Judy can you just address how we're tracking our covid expenses and how FEMA may or may not another source of great unknowns so we've been tracking our cost since this started back in March we have um set up a whole system to track these costs so that we can report them into FEMA FEMA has yet to issue their guidance on
016what exactly is covered or not covered so we're spending an awful lot of money on personal protective equipment so we've got probably at least 250,000 spent thus far and more items on order we're probably going to be looking at as as the year goes by 700,000 or more in PPE costs so if FEMA covers that that is great news for us because they reimburse us at 75% but we don't know exactly what they're going to cover um as I think I had mentioned at an earlier meeting they don't they're not used to dealing with these types of emergencies they're used to hurricane and tornadoes property damage type things so the costs are significant I'm hoping they step up in that regard but it realistically won't be at least until another few months before we know
017what that's going to look like and we've also um because of having to offer virtual only we've also had to add staff for those and I don't know if that would be something I mean we're tracking it but I'm not sure if that would be covered under FEMA but I think it's about five or six positions at this point um which is if those go on all year that's a significant dollar amount as well right so they're going into that special general ledger code to track them and uh I hope for some Aid I mean we're not the only ones who are dealing with that this is something that all schools are grappling with Judy I'm a little confused about what would be a loan and what wouldn't so for example if we took money
018from the UND designated fund balance is that a loone or is that no that you're spending your savings okay so what so if we took something out of say employee benefits to pay for employee benefits would that also not be a loan that is not a loan that is using the reserve for its intended legal purpose but if we used it say for example to pay for PPE then it would be alone correct any PPE or covid related expenditures that that come out of those reserves is a loan okay thank you y j I have two questions um the 8 million that you estimated for withholds on statutory expenses that had statutory due dates is that on top of the 5.8 or does it raise our it raes okay and then the other question was
019that for the whole fiscal year or was that for the first quarter the 8 million yes uh hopefully the whole fiscal year um again we don't know yet yeah so cross everything you got right well so that I mean that was my question division of budget as I understand it at least for other Industries has said the 20% withhold is good for this first quarter at which point they the withhold could increase or decrease or anything could happen have do we have a different message for schools or is that consistent with what you've heard at the end of the day all we've heard is 20% the 20% has expanded from just Foundation Aid now to all Aid categories rumor discussions about changing the formula to that statutory non-statutory due date category so if that happens
020that's where you balloon up to about the 8 million the state changes their formulas all the time on state aid so that's why I had the slide up there about it doesn't matter what we're calling it if they're not paying it to us they're not paying it to us when we went through this the last time with the deficit reduction we were looking at anywhere from between maybe two and $4 million a year in withheld Aid and that was a period of about five years that we were we're dealing with that so we just don't know until they tell us what it's going to look like um question for you in terms of um reimbursements um the Food Service staff has been doing an amazing job with providing meals for so many uh kids and
021families is there any chance we could get reimbursements for some of that oh yes so that um Alisa eizer our director has applied for all of the necessary waivers and program approvals so in fact she was just telling me yesterday there is talk about increasing the reimbursement rate for the meals because they're just so critical for our families up to the highest possible rate so as opposed to the distinction between free and reduced the free rate is the highest reimbursement so that might be coming our way and that would be would that be from the state or the federal government um it's largely the state there's a little piece that's considered a pass through but primarily New York State okay is that statutory I don't know because if it's not statutory they could withhold it
022they could I would say the odds are probably lower just based on what we've seen from the importance I mean that was the one thing that was mandated right out of the gates for us was to provide meals to the community so I would be very surprised if they cut that source of funding off thank you I like certainty and I don't have any to give you right now any other questions for Judy thank you uh next on our agenda are our meeting reports um and first up is our superintendence report uh sure thank you I first wanted to turn it over to Dave Hurst just to give everyone an update on the uh number of kids we have uh participating in Virtual only versus onsite and then also just to Quick uh discuss an
023update on some of our curriculum updates regarding um race and sexual harassment okay thank you so to date we have um 581 students um that have elected for virtual only um that comes to 265 at the elementary level and for that cohort of students we've um created a virtual Learning Academy um which we have 13 teachers dedicated to this um plus some special education providers um an enl teacher part-time pushing into the program so it's a it's essentially going to be running like a sixth building um in fact it's um would be the third largest building if we were to sort of categorize it that way um so we we have very healthy numbers there um we have staff that the last two days they've been doing nonstop um planning and PD um today today
024they went through about 6 hours worth of PD that they requested um after yesterday sitting down and working through schedules and and you know just the logistics of being set up we have them housed all of the teachers are going to be housed in our LMC um here at the high school where um Laurel Jones will be able to be in there to oversee that we have um a um support staff also helping sort of with some of the clerical work they have a dedicated phone line so TR we truly are trying to create um a completely separate Community um for these students and their families so that they feel a sense of belonging because we did bring together all of the students from all five buildings into this one program um so we felt
025that it was very important that as we mix the students to develop as much of a sense of community as we could so that they develop their own identity um we created a um a logo for the program to kind of give it some branding I mean we really are trying to to give it its own sort of fi um at the middle school we have 126 students that have elected for virtual only um 32 at the 6th grade 57 at the 7th grade grade and 37 at the eighth grade so seventh grade is almost double either sixth or eighth um and then High School n9th grade is 38 10th is 53 11th is 59 and 12th is 40 so the two book ends are smaller and the two in the middle are a little
026bit larger um but overall I mean the balance from grade level to grade level is fairly close um which that obviously helped in our planning um it did help reduce capacity at the the high school and Middle School which allowed us to do some things that we originally um weren't sure we were going to be able to do um so for instance at the high school we are going to be able to have our Excel students in grades 9 and 10 they will be able to attend every day which as you know this is a program for students that um you know struggle academically we have extra supports built in for them we added the tutorial last year to the ninth grade and this year we're adding to the 10th grade so those students will
027be able to come in every day and take full advantage of that um which we think is you know really really important for that group of students um that's above and beyond the enl students and special education students that we had already identified prior to the process as being in every day um so you know those are the numbers to date they've held um you know very steady we've had a few new families enroll in the district within the last few days that have elected remote but outside of that it's been you know the families were very good about completing the waiver on time um so that we were able to do proper planning and really put together what we think um is a especially the K5 model you know I haven't heard of any
028other districts in the area doing a model quite as sort of in depth as the one that we're doing so we're very proud of the model that we're proposing and you want to just update on the what we're thinking to so the um the summer curriculum work has been well underway um we're very fortunate in terms of for um sort of what we're considering our culturally responsive teaching we have been able to to work with um harri's been working very closely with our English Department and social studies department and some of the planning um we're still you know the very infant stages of this work but they've also at the same time they've made quite progress right so the four areas that they're really looking at are the curriculum itself um and I'll give some
029highlights in a second in each area um sort of just this idea of sensitivity of language and this is something that Harriet really brought to the Forefront that um for instance um you know eliminating the read a lot of the nword was something that Harriet's um very passionate about and gave great research as to the rationale behind that um so she's just working with um teachers to understand things like that um so we're doing a lot more training in PD both through Harry and we're also looking at um utilizing um someone named Cornelius Miner from Teachers College who they're the ones that develop our elementary and middle school program so we're working with them um and then also interdisciplinary opportunities so just just to highlight a few things um so for the curriculum in terms
030of um reading curriculum we're adding you know several new titles um across different grade levels to include um Major Works written by um diverse authors and it's interesting now um this is an area that we're very fortunate Harriet was a an English teacher then she was a building principal before she began this work so she brings a lot of credibility to her work with our teachers um and like some of the text that they ini pulled out um she's like yeah those are they're great because they're written by say a black author but it's actually not written very well so she's she know so she's getting them to understand that it's not just about um selecting titles that might check off the boxes but really being thoughtful about selecting titles that are at the appropriate
031reading level and you know are appropriate works of literature not just for the fact that they sort of check off the different Equity boxes so we're sort of very happy about that um so this year in the English Department they're essentially choosing a variety of titles um and and sort of using this as a pilot year because we don't want to say like these are the books we're going to use and we're going to use these you know moving forward forever so different teachers are going to try different texts and they're going to kind of discuss and see which ones Works which ones didn't um through the course of the year and they work with Harriet on that um we've added a bunch of titles to the elementary series for social studies um similar idea
032looking at getting away from you know solely relying on the textbook in terms of being presenting the information really looking at are there external sources outside of the textbook that allow us to look at different perspectives on different topics involving race gender identity um so I think the the one thing I do want to highlight is the interdisciplinary piece and this is I think you know goes back to the spirit of why the lab school was um developed was to sort of pilot programs that could eventually be developed throughout the entire school um so we have our our lab school social studies and English teacher this summer put together a project where they're really looking at um anti-racist topics and themes through both literature and um the US history and government curriculum um so they're
033going to be diving deeply into um slavery um they're going to be working through the 1619 project um reading excerpts from stamped racism anti-racism and you and so forth um so just really looking at an interdisciplinary approach to this which hopefully that'll generate IDE that can then be spread to um the overall school um so I do um sort of thinking ahead knowing that this work is just starting um I was thinking that typically in um October I give my academic update well given that we had I have no sort of State Testing results no um Regent exam results there's really none of there's nothing to report right so I was thinking um it'd be a valuable use of that time to have I would um Andy and Nick would be here representing social studies
034in English and they'd be able to give you um you know much more detail on how things are progressing in terms of what they've actually been able to do the first few months of school and I was also going to invite um Fred powers and Kristen Connor to talk more about um the movement we've made in terms of increasing our curriculum in um sexual harassment um consent sexual abuse in those areas um they've done a ton of work over the summer um really ating across Health PE fa our social emotional curriculum um they put together a a lot of great new units across those areas um and for me to try to summarize that in this little piece would would not do it justice so I'm going to ask them to come give all that
035in much more detail and allow you to ask them questions because um I mean while they're providing me with all of the information that they're much more intimate with the details and I am I wanted to give you an update yeah I think that's a great idea yeah are you able I'm just curious um to share any of the um the literature that they're considering I do have more of the it's on the elementary side of things um than the high school and I lost my I lost my page where it was on um there's a separate document somehow I lost it okay it's all right next meeting can I ask two quick questions go sorry I know were sorry um first in terms of the virtual if you are a special ed student doing
036virtual learning are all your services going to be online or like like PT like how would that work yep so they would still be online um really it's more that's where the parent has to be involved and the therapist will be working sort of jointly with the student and the parent where the parent typically has to help the student do the manipulations that the therapist is asking to make sure that they're being done correctly um it's really not unlike what happened in March but we do have um a dedic not dedicated but we we we have scheduled in the program a speech language pathologist um ptot um and enl services so the students that require services will get the full range of services they just won't be yeah in person do you know not to
037cut in but do you know what percentage of the 581 are identified students not offand but it's um it's I would if I had to guess it it's in line with the numbers of the overall population so 10 perish yeah excellent um my other question um I'm really interested in some of the stuff that you're doing with the racial Equity I'm I'm a social studies teacher and you know there's so much stuff going on you know over the past three months you know black lives matter George Floyd how do we um how do we help teachers to be able to talk about these things I'm sure there's some teachers that would feel wildly uncomfortable talking about it and how do we encourage them I'm sure there's teachers that would feel super comfortable talking about it
038and might go further than you know kids are comfortable with um so how do we yeah and well that's one of the reasons we're working with Harriet again um is she's very good at working with teachers to reach that as comfortable level as they can reach right um just in the short time that we worked with her last year I know the teachers that um worked with her felt much more at ease being able to discuss any difficult topic um she just had a really I don't know down to earth way of of letting you know that you know you're better off having these difficult conversations and completely butchering them than you are just ignoring them because students students definitely notice when you ignore things right they they're much more appreciative when you try to
039intercede um step in and and provide advice even if you aren't necessarily 100% successful in doing so because it just shows that level of caring and then the more teachers I guess hear that message and are um sort of given the okay to make mistakes the more apt they are to do that I know the teachers that went through the trainings last year have said that that they're they're still struggling with doing it but they're much more apt to do it because they kind of hear her voice in the back of their head yeah but it's yeah ongoing training and it's it's always going to be difficult for sure Dave I have another question um so the anti-racist stuff is all going to be in the lab school only or is this going to be
040acoss I'm just I was just highlighting one unit oh that's just one unit I think stood out from the the um in terms of interdisciplinary okay yeah but all the teachers are going to have access to you know picking new things for oh for sure yeah I mean there's like I said I think it's more appropriate Nick and Andy but there's um I mean every unit if there's 15 items in there every single one of those units has three to four new ones with them cuz I you know cuz it it's going to go like across all the 11th grade that is American lit it's going to be every American lit teacher which there's probably five or six different teachers one sort of sort of Baseline at the high school level is that every course
041is required to um include at least one major work written by div author um that's not to say they won't do more but that's just kind of starting point M you um mentioned the PD that the um virtual Learning Academy teachers were doing can you speak to uh some of the professional development that the middle school and high school teachers are doing in order to be able to manage so the fth ab split we did a two-day um summer boot camp like we typically do and this year um given that it was done virtually our our attendance went up quite a bit B um I was in years past we'd have 50 to 60 teachers attend this year we had closer to 100 um and I think that's because you know in the past if
042you if you saw on the program you know there's maybe only one session that you wanted to attend depending on where you live you may or may not want to drive here for an hour session right um but virtu had a lot of teachers take advantage of just one session here one session there um because they were able to just do it from the comfort of their home we also made all the sessions available we recorded them all so teachers could watch them on and um so we have huge response to that um these past two days our Tech coaches have um so we have um four at the middle school three at the high school plus we have our um Tech integration specialist who here hous at the Middle High School um they had
043sessions running non-stop throughout the day um departments were working within their meetings um we'll have more next week before the students arrive but there's been yeah there's been a ton of PD available to teachers um and they just walking around today seeing them they've been very appreciative yeah thanks we've in the event that things go so well um in the fall and numbers stay down and there's no mandatory closures Etc do we have spaces as a plan B for 581 students to return to campus yes I mean so the middle and high school is easy because they're all already scheduled into the classes um and that so that part works out um the elementary depending on because again we sort of are telling families that they can only return the 10 week marks so if
044all 265 decided they wanted to go back to in person in November then those 13 teacher we I mean we'd have to reshuffle things around but yes they there's there's room but we'd have to obviously take the 13 teachers that are dedicated to the program and put them back in the different buildings and re reshuffle things around a little bit and I'm sorry and we had them originally accounted for in the buildings k6 so our plan was everyone was on site k6 that we had to offer a virtual right the the biggest challenge and people may not like it is that kids may be going to very different places it might mean classes that are currently in session get shuffled around to because we collapsed I think it was five sections across the buildings so
045would the plan be for them to stay with their cohorts from what would be the five buildings keep their teacher and all go to one place or we would shuffle them all back into the well they all have to be shuffled because we don't have yeah those those virtual numbers are higher in some cases I have question Dave so did the English and social studies supervisors reach out to like the teachers to see if they had some um o sorry um literature already incorporated into their curriculum okay so they did that and then the other thing I was talking to a student who's going to Skidmore and he was taking a playright class and the teacher decided to change the curriculum to all black playwrights for the year to do something different have we ever
046thought about maybe like for um like a senior or Junior elective English course to do like black literature maybe look and see if that's something that would be of interest like I know my son's taking race in America as his freshman seminar so I was just wondering if that was something that maybe we were thinking about incorporating or trying out to see if there would be an interest in that type of course work um I mean we do have our um our race course at the high school which is very popular um and that really is that almost is an interdisciplinary course um so that's an area where an increase could be made I don't know that we would necessarily have the need for another Standalone cour because I think that course is probably the
047appropriate place to do it okay yeah thank you any other questions yeah I just um thank you Dave for all your work on this I know setting up the virtual uh Learning Academy was a a huge ask um I did want to ask you though regarding the schedule for the K through five I know we talked about um the potential schedule and it almost mirroring the typical day in the sense that it it lasted from around 9 to 2 and I have um concerns about that schedule working for our youngest Learners K through two um because I uh did have two kids who were invol who were doing virtual learning over the spring who were in kindergarten in second grade I feel like I do have an Insight in what that feels like to a
048kindergartner um it can be very hard for kindergarteners to be on a zoom meeting for more than a half an hour so they wouldn't be okay that's what I I want to it's very throughout the day I think um for K12 if I remember correctly it's 20 minutes are the session lengths okay um so they'll be on for 20 minutes um so for an example they might be on for 20 minutes for the full class morning meeting then one group of students would be on for so the classes are all going to be broken into K2 lab they're all broken into thirds okay um so a third of the students will be on for like 20 minutes a third will be doing an independent activity in ela and then the other third I'll be doing
049another independent activity and then they'll kind of rotate through those three stations and then you'll come back and do a whole group math lesson and they'll rotate through three stations um then there'll be some other activities in the afternoon so there'll be kind of constant bouncing on and off throughout the day um so I mean the total time is two to two and a half hours worth of actual online where you're you're live with the teacher okay um which in talking with other districts we're actually kind of on the lower end um again the challenge is students that age aren't independent enough where they'd be able to learn material on their own either so there's that definite balance you know so there's that definite balance of how much independent work can you give them versus
050how much do they actually need the teacher they're directing them um so you know the schedule we have week one might not be the schedule we have week two and I I mean we're going to certainly adjust things as the program moves along if things aren't working we'll tweak them to make them better right that's that's what I wanted to hear because I want parents also to um know that they can talk with the teachers and say what is working for their individual child and feel that they have some control over that that if a child is really struggling and not able to do what is being asked of them es you know those younger years I want to make sure that our teachers know that they have the flexibility to work with the parent
051to see what what can work for that particular child another thing we did build in is we built in office hours every day um for students and parents to make contact with teachers um so that could be sort of homework help it could be just parents needing time to check in um so we did build in a sort of a communication vehicle every day where parents and students have the opportunity to meet one I want teacher great one of the things though I think that some parents were confused about and maybe if because of the way the model was in the spring is we are responsible for making sure kids are getting appropriate instruction and we're responsible for daily attendance and making sure that we're meeting minimum requirements so a parent can certainly Express concerns
052and things but ultimately they can't kind of pick and choose I only want my child on 30 minutes a day because then we're not meeting our obligations for um educating their child either so I understand you know I think there some some parents at least early on who thought that they were going to kind of create their own schedule and that just doesn't work right but if a schedule is not working for a child we want our families to be able to talk to the teacher see what what they can do to make that work right Absolut to satisfy our obligations but also take into account the individual needs because this is not the ideal situation for five and six year olds um and I really I love the idea that this virtual Learning Academy
053is going to be a sixth school I love that um what are our plans however if um a child is in person and then has to move into the virtual um into virtual learning I understand we can't just shove them into a pre-established class so what is their learning going to look like do are they going to have any contact with a teacher are we going to be evaluating them in any way like how is that going to work so yeah I guess under what condition would they be throwing oh say you know a child has been doing in in-person learning and um then you know someone gets sick or something and they decide they need to do virtual for the rest of the semester yeah um so I mean we we do have some
054capacity some at a couple of the grade levels if if an emergency Rose like that um but most likely they'd be doing pretty much asynchronous we would have to set them up with um sort of pre-recorded in essence we'd have to have them sign up for something like KH Academy where then they would send us weekly updates okay um and they could utilize um I ready as well which at least that way that gives us an assessment of where they are it's that is not an ideal situation for sure yeah are you talking Elementary level or are you just talking elementary elementary level middle and high school is easy because basically I mean if you're here every other day versus not here at all you still follow that same model right you're still in a
055class you're still live streaming um it's not a difference but if you're Elementary and all of a sudden you need to be out for an extended period of time you know we're not live streaming Elementary lessons right um but at the same time for you to just jump into the academy you're not going to know any of those students or the teachers either and they might not even be in the same place curricularly as your teacher because not everyone's necessarily in the same exact place especially in like science um soci studies were you know science in particular where we're sharing kits they rotate through which ones you're doing um yeah I mean know we know this is going to come up we're going to have to make arrangements when yeah we would try to integrate
056them into the Online Academy though I would imagine I mean I'm just going back to having a sick kid in ninth grade where she was out of school for a while and even if they're a little bit behind or ahead or wherever from being in person versus going to an online format it's still better than what we got when she was homesick for 3 months so I mean I hope that we can find a way to integrate them into an online setting if that were to be the case somebody I think a parent would probably be able to get them caught up if it was like kindergarten first grade I would hope any other questions okay and then um I wanted to bring up this topic of Athletics because I think there's a lot misinformation
057out there and I thought I put together a few slides it's not can see okay I can push this back um so I think there's you know a lot of I know we received a lot of emails and many of them think the governor gave the okay let's go ahead with it and I'm not sure everyone realizes that there's a state Association a section Association a League Association and then down to the district level so this past week superintendent provided feedback to section two uh that was due actually Tuesday to them this nispa is the state Association who um said that they would come out with guidance by Friday um and I'm hoping that that's either in combination with the Department of Health for Department of Health um has indicated they have updated guidance because
058school districts in our reopening plan were told to follow the Department of Health guidance and state Ed guidance so right now the only thing we have is uh the governor who on August 15th said that some sports could resume as of September 21st so until we have further guidance we don't really know what that looks like so what the governor had said is that some competitions could begin he indicated uh tennis cross country field hockey soccer and swimming could begin uh practice in competitions um practice only potentially for high-risk Sports which are considered football cheerleading and volleyball and then local decisions has to follow the CDC guidance uh which is also the do guidance which is what I just indicated we're still waiting for so some of the sports classification this is from New York
059state are identified as low-risk C cross country tennis which they identify as singles only swimming and bowling which is not a fall sport um moderate risk are baseball softball uh doubles tennis gymnastics again not all of these are fall Sports field hockey swimming soccer and other track and field and the high-risk sports are football wrestling hockey cheerleading lacrosse and and volleyball um so some of what the confusion is I think or some of the frustration is that the current do guidance for schools reopening talk about six feet social distancing in all classrooms and buildings uh minimizing cohorts masks are required no sharing of materials or if materials are shared they require disinfection after use or between cohorts for some areas such as PE choir and ban the Department of Health requires 12 ft social distancing
060both indoors and out with masks locker rooms are not permitted to be used no visitors um are allowed unless there's a health or safety risk and travel competition is considered high risks for Centers for Disease Control and this is from the CDC and they don't identify any specific Sports how they categorize their you this is from their you Sports is you have lower risk to higher risk and you can see that skill building team practices are lower risk within team competition so this would be our students playing among themselves competition with teams from your area which would be the local Capital Region and then full competition from different areas so you see they go from low risk to high risk but they don't identify specific spefic Sports because they take into account cohort mixing and
061travel so some of the things um that we have in place for our reopening is we don't have any after school time um so after school help all the clubs based on do guidance is virtual all clubs are virtual and to begin the year no choir or music or band I should say really because of the 12T distancing um when playing or singing or wind instruments the other concern is obviously transportation and putting um we have to currently socially distance uh for our transportation students are on the same bus in the morning same bus every day after school we're not allowed to vary from that we do have a bus driver shortage I think every District I'm not saying anything new that's a fact uh we currently have no late buses for extra academics or
062extracurricular um and the other concern that I know has been raised is we have for 7 through 12 students an alternating Day schedule so not all students are present and I know that that's a concern with if you are a student who doesn't have a means to get to school for practice or competition that essentially could eliminate you from participating in gra in games or or practices the New York State education department did indicate that um transfer ation may be provided but districts are not required to provide transportation for inter Scholastic Athletics so that was just recently released I think that's the last slide so that's what I wanted to share in that we currently don't have guidance hopefully we'll have some from the Department of Health and the State athletic association by Friday um
063and these are some of the conflicting pieces of information that we have currently from do for our re or what's included as part of our reopening plan so I wanted to sure um just first we got a bunch of emails um some of them stated that all other Suburban districts have agreed to do Sports in your conversations with other superintendent is that true have they all signed off on it no the superintendant are waiting for additional guidance without the guidance you don't know what the parameters are to um have a reopening plan with Athletics okay so like no school in the Suburban council at this moment has a plan to go forward with sports they're talking about it there's lots of discussions but there's no Suburban that has a sheet of paper that says this
064is how we're going to do Sports no not to my knowledge okay no because like I'm a sports guy I love sports you know that's what I do and I want I want all of these Sports to occur it would be awesome for all these to occur I I would encourage them to occur but I just have so many so many concerns like all the ones that that you brought up um you know as a school board like I feel my number one job is to make these sure these kids are safe you know these kids come here and at a minimum we should send them back to Mom and Dad um no worse for where you know and I I I have I you have worries I have worries about this you know we
065get emails throughout the year about you know is this safe or is this safe and I don't know I in this case I I don't I don't know if it is I want it to be you know some of my neighbors are seniors in high school they play football and I want them to play football I I feel awful that they couldn't but I also can't look them in the eye and say it's going to be safe um I also like you know as a sports guy I always feel you know Sports always good favored you know when I try and push that off but in this case they are you know if you're if you're a theater kid you're being told no if you're a chorus kid you're being told no but for sports
066it's a yes and I just feel that's it's tough it's tough to reconcile that um the travel part really worries me you know how do we how do we travel from one school to another well we can carpool we heard from parents that they would carpool but that scares me because you're putting six kids in a car who probably you know are different groups in school all day and now we're mixing mixing kids in a car which I don't like um I'm just I just have a lot of worries I hope that the do and section two and people can come out with a plan that makes sense and we can we can pull this off that would be awesome but it just there's just so many things that are up in the a it's
067I'm being asked to say yes to something when I don't know 80% of the answers but we're not being asked to say yes to anything right now yeah I agree with that I'm just sharing what there is misinformation out there what I'm saying I think there's there's a real concern amongst parents based on the emails that we got that somehow you know we're going to shut it all down we're going to say yes or no at this moment and no school has any plan on how to do this they can say they want to do it but they have no plan so to say yes to something without a plan is just it's not responsible well we also need to have a plan it would be part of our reopening plan because if you recall
068in the current guidance it it had said that sports are not allowed and then they essentially do added in basically the communication the governor gave in a press conference about this was allowed but there is no further guidance regarding from do about that so that's what we're waiting for because I mean I I understand why we're getting these emails I mean these kids they love sports it's their passion you know some of the kids they come to school because of because they play a sport you know it's what keeps them going but you know we also have a responsibility to make sure that they're safe you know and the one last thing that I I worry about is this is we got a lot of emails saying that um they did a club or a
069private sport um over the summer and it worked out great and and I understand that you know my son did a did um you know baseball camp and stuff like that I get it um but it's different now because in the summer you were spending taking your kid to camp and then you were taking him home and then Camp home but in this you're taking him him or her sorry to school and then to sports and then the next day they're going right back into school with kids that you know may not that aren't doing sports and you're mixing it in with that population and I just it that's a concern of mine Jody sorry can I also just I feel like I need to distinguish between the ability to practice a sport and have
070a coach assigned and have some activities going on associated with sports as compared to competing practicing traveling putting kids in a bus mixing school districts because I think that and I I understand that the push is for all of the latter piece of that but I think that the the guidance as minimal as it is could allow students to at least practice and condition so when you are having internal discussions and cross District discussions is it just focused on the practicing competing piece of it or can we it doesn't say it doesn't delineate between inside or outside so what kind of practice can you do with 12T distancing you know so that's where it's a little little unclear does this mean we don't have to does it mean if you're six foot you have to
071wear a mask while you're practicing I don't know that's where some of the confusion is you know if you're not to share materials how are you throwing a ball back and forth um you know are you supposed to be disinfecting athletic equipment because that's what the guidance is for PE yeah I just and I don't have the answers I just do I just wanted to be be clear that there there could be a distinguish oh sure a line between sure come and do soccer drills without interacting with one another versus get on a bus and go well I think that's kind of what the CDC that little diagram was intending to do that here's you know some of the low risk going to high risk based on that individual practice practing with another person things
072like that but I mean obviously that's very generic but I think that was the kind of the intent of that and that guidance is I think relatively old maybe July or something was I don't know that that's been updated right yeah and and I suppose along the same lines you could also do something different between varsity and JV right like I mean right there I know some schools are talking about only doing Varsity um if if we're moving forward some are talking about just varsity and JV so there's a wide range and some of that is financial pieces uh some of it is schedule some of it is transportation so you know everyone's got different reasons you know Judy presented on the finances and I think we're well aware of some of the other local
073school districts who are making drastic reductions because of that so that could be a piece for them but sorry the one one thing I forgot to say I apologize I was realizing my little list here of notes I I think we can pull off sports like golf tennis cross country like I think like this isn't like we can't do any sports I I think we reason those are the lower risk yes like we can reasonably pull those off it's just the gray area it gets to when you get to field hockey soccer you know how do you minimize risk on a soccer field when two people are going for the same soccer bowl how do how do we how do we keep those kids safe you know in football I mean that's even more questions
074you know how how can I look a parent in the face and say as a Schoolboard member I why I keeping your kids safe to the best of my ability right and it's it's not just those kids playing right it's the 600 families that made the heart-wrenching decision to keep their kids home because they didn't think they were safe in school without Athletics and districts intermingling on buses to go play competitions right and so where where is the line and how fair is it to families who now are accommodating children at home in remote learning and what what impact is it have for everybody not just the kids playing it's it's incredibly complicated I also worry about I also worry about our teachers who are you know maybe we comfortable coming back and teaching with
075the plan that we had and I don't know if you know what the response would be if now there's a lot more movement taking place it's adding risk it's adding risk but there's also the kids that don't play sports that were here to protect as well and so I think Chris's point is over the summer the kids were playing sports I think it was a great point that they're going to the activity the event they're going home or maybe they're traveling maybe they're doing some travel stuff but they're not coming to school they're not putting other kids at risk and I know other states don't have some of those Sports considered low risk but New York does which was interesting to me because I think there's a lot of other states that categorize them differently
076and I'm for the low risk if we have the ability to do it I think there's a short window I mean they're talking the 21st and so whatever we do is going to have to be done rapidly it's a lot of scheduling it would be a lot of preparation I would think it would be very difficult to pull that all off and I had a son who didn't get to play Varsity in the spring and he was upset by it and devastated so you know I understand how these parents feel or the kids feel cuz I lived it but I also have a son at school who can't go in another dorm building and they can barely interact with people outside of their their dorm room so they're doing all that at a college level
077and then they're not even playing sports at college level I mean their whole season has been cancelled so it's going to be up to the district to decide ultimately once all those decisions come down from every venue and to decide what we want to do and I just think it would be hard to justify doing anything other than low-risk Sports which it breaks my heart to say that I understand the kids it's good for their mental health I play tennis I'm out playing tennis so I understand that it's important to be out there active and playing sports so it's it's a hard decision but I think we have to make the decision for the entire school it has to be well thought out out it'll be great to get some guidance But ultimately you know
078we might not have enough bus as drivers we're limiting travel and I just I think it's going to be a a tough decision when we when we finally Comm make the deis I mean one of the things I just I want to make sure that we keep in mind is you know and I I get I didn't need the you know the 100 emails to remind me I knew how important sports are to the kids um um and you know they they're passionate about it it's what gets them to come to school but you can say the same thing for the kids that are musicians and the kids that are actors and the kids that are artists and all of those kids are missing their um co-curricular activity as well and I just I think
079we need to be really careful because if we're going to allow you know a lowrisk sport like golf um tennis cross country something even something like that to go ahead we need to be mindful of whether we're also allowing opportunities for uh for our our other kids to do things that would be equally low risk um such as you know I'm not talking about a full musical in the parking lot but you know to practice for but to I mean there's to practice a you know a play um outside or a way to you know do art or music all of those things are just as important to those kids as sports are to our athletes and I just I don't want to forget that and lose sight of that well it's funny you should
080say that because we have a student Jack mastriani who's a senior at University of Michigan which is the top uh like musical theater program in the country and and they do the senior entrance and they were all outside socially distancing seeing but their whole season has been cancelled which is you know heartbreaking for the top musical theater program and Broadways clothes but I understand your point like if they could do that opening scene socially distanc I would like to see us try to on top of everything else we're doing try to make activities inperson socially distancing even if it's not sports related because the mental health issues I think are really important I know I'm struggling sometimes at home home to be you know socially distanced and I I I think it's really hard for
081the kids right now and anything that we can do whether it's sports or otherwise whether they're you know singing 12et apart in the parking lot I I think that would be great and and that would all also be dependent on if we can add after school transportation right I mean because all this stuff is going to happen after school and you're going to disadvantage kids who can't get a ride home if we don't want them you know if we don't want one parent picking up six kids I I just you know I don't know how we can make it fair for everybody if we've already said there's no clubs everything's got to be done virtual so well that's based on the guidance we have um if that guidance were to be adjusted or we I
082mean I think if we do after school activities we have to find a way to track kids somehow because of the whole contact tracing piece uh we have to make sure that we're able to account for everybody the transportation pieces yeah it's a challenge and like I said it's not just us it's every district is struggling with it you know we have uh we currently just to get kids to and from school we're a driver short right now but I also I want to say the fair the fairness I'm all for fairness believe me my whole life I wish things were fair but I don't want to penalize somebody like let's say tennis can go forward I shouldn't use that because I play tennis but cross country I don't want to say you can't do
083that because the guidance says you can't do something else I think that's not right either I agree I agree like just and you know this kind of came up because there were early discussions about sports and there were some conversations that what if only these Sports can go forward and others can't and there were some I think sentiment in from different people that if all sports can't go then none should and I I don't I don't agree with that I think that kids have lost a lot of opportunities we all know that co-curricular activities Sports theater art music are incredibly important aspects of school for kids so what we can offer I think we should even if it means there's some things that we can't yep and we make the best of it because that's
084life yeah well I'm hoping that the guidance we get on Friday or today that we were supposed to get yes um will illuminate some of these issues and maybe solve particularly that the 12 foot PE one because I wrestle that's wrapping my mind around that the I know the PE staff were not thrilled when they asked me if the guidance for them has changed and I told them it had not yeah buying a lot of jump ropes well Ultimate Frisbee becomes part of the PE L yoga can't share equipment so you can't play Frisbee right just like you can't use a locker room so swimming may be you know inconsequential as far as the low risk but yeah nobody wants to get sweaty and not be able to and andan right and then you know
085swimming you're you know is the pool material yeah going plac in wet bathing suit it's going to be impossible in cold weather which is coming up so we are also um working really closely with our school physician obviously he plays a big part in this he has to be he's the one who signs off on kids being able to play sports uh I know Joan menrath had a and I had a call with him today he works closely with our athletic department he's on uh some State Association related to athletic so he's pretty in tune to all of this and I would say he's equally frustrated that we have not received um some guidance about all of these things because he has a lot of questions as well even if we could go to have
086some sports he's required to clear all the kids how long is it going to take him to clear those kids they concern of all the school Physicians because of the timing you know everything has been delayed signups and we did automate our process this year but ultimately it has to go through our School nurses it has to go through um their Physicians through our school physici so we may have to um depending on what sports move forward for how many kids are involved we might have to prioritize you know Varsity level gets first priority for medical clearance and so on that's or it might just be a delay and normally it takes I understand the whole month of August to go through this it takes in a normal season it so hypothetically if we were
087going to go full boore and I don't see that happening but if we were would be what the end of October yeah it would yeah it usually takes a good solid month but again with less Sports less numbers that would make that a little more manageable but he does have some concerns about just the timing of everything can you mention swimming too like the other thing is right now we're not allowed to have visitors in the building so and we don't have lockers so how could we even have swimming right because nobody's allowed to come in the building and so that's going to limit a lot of things the school physician he he actually was um concerned about swimming particularly because of the ventilation um the humidity um and I think that at least for
088youth sports for swimming you ear in the pool you swim you get out you put a mask on but if you have any numbers in a swim area and he he said you know I've had six kids all swimmers competitive swimmers he said that he's very concerned about just the ventil piece and an indoor environment for swimming sorry one more thing um it's just my opinion and but I just I would just ask this that like Jody I'd ask that like we wait for the guidance and we get the guidance and then just once again just for me you know when you meet with the superintendant have a good faith effort to see how we can make this happen I mean well let's see if we can right you know and if the cards play
089out that we can that's great I I I want kids to have opportunities I want seniors to have their varsity fall season you know you know those kids have been playing sports you know since they were four and five years old and I want them to have that opportunity um so if we can that's great but if they but if we can't then you know if the superintendent could come together and have that conversation it's just going to be very tricky if we have you know those mixed elements some people say yes some people say no just having that conversation across the whole Council and figuring out what's best for the kids and how can we pull it off and I think there's probably going to be a um a little inconsistency anyhow just because
090some schools are saying financially they can't do it some schools are saying I'm using my gym is classrooms or lunch spaces so how am I supposed to use it for volleyball let's say um and we have different gyms but some schools are not in the situation we are um so in some for schools have indicated that they would only consider a Varity level only so I think there will be some disparity anyhow um but I think I agree I think trying to be as consistent as possible is helpful and it'll also you know you want to if you're going to have competitions with other schools you need other schools to compete against thank you so that's my update and hopefully that helps clarify I think some at least in the emails it sounded like there
091was a lot of misinformation that we received no thank you hopefully it but I do want to thank all the parents that did write emails that I mean they obviously put a lot of time and thought into sending the emails but as Holly said I mean we're really aware of what it's like and why we should allow Sports and you know we're trying to do everything we can but might not be able to we want to keep school open too we want to keep school open first educate the kids first sports a second um one question I had is um where are we with the tents so they were ordered they are scheduled to arrive around the 14th or 15th of September okay so that's still your understanding I know yes how many did we
092get we had two for the high school I think one or two for the middle school and one for each Elementary School I don't maybe the Middle School only got one cuz they had the Pavilion yeah and we are I know Ry has been working on trying to set up some Wi-Fi access in some of those outside areas I mean the challenge is that we have kids logging on from home to participate you can't really do that model outside because you're you're using these boards to display the kids at home but if you have activities that work for that you kids could still use their Chromebooks outside M okay um any other questions for Jody that's it thank you um next up is our board report and I did just want to say first off
093that it really is I know we all have masks on our faces and are sitting apart from each other but it's nice to see everybody in person um and it was also uh I wanted to officially um welcome back all of our faculty and staff and um not too long from now our students um and to recognize we had uh 12 employees uh celebrating Milestones this year um and I wanted to particularly call out um Donna asprion for her 35 years of service to the district um because that's a that's a pretty big number and I know we didn't have our normal you know big welcome back inperson day and I just want to make sure that uh that those Milestones get recognized um and also to make everyone aware that we have 27 uh
094if I counted correctly new employees joining the district this year um and I wanted to offer all of them a welcome uh to Bethlehem and uh lastly I just wanted to really thank you jod um and everybody else who's been working on getting us to this point um where we are reopening it has been a I think it it's an understatement to say it's been a Monumental task um since over the summer since March and I just really wanted to extend our thanks for all the work that you've done thank you um anybody have anything else they'd like to share at this point one I was excited to get dressed up and go somewhere I admit it I definitely was dress up for the occasion um to thank you Jody and Dave for all the
095work work that you've done I know it's been a very stressful summer and uh very appreciative of all that you do and uh I also wanted just to to wish Mr uh Patrick oconnell good luck in his new job um he took a last minute position closer to home and he is such a wonderful individual he's like an absolutely fantastic musician would play at fractor it's a loss to the district and I was sad to hear that he left so that is it and in addition to that like we just found out on Friday that Mr K is retiring at Hammer Grail and he told the parents and we're all crushed um at the end of the year don't start at the end of the year but still we're all very sad so I would
096strongly urge the board to deny his requests if we keep him for another five or 10 years that would be great so but I wish him nothing but the best uh seeing no other com comments uh next on our agenda is our public comment um we did uh receive some comments um coming in through email um as stated we had a number of comments um with uh respect to the Athletics issue we had over a 100 emails in support of allowing uh fall Sports to proceed um in a variety of different ways um which I know everybody I think received uh there were two emails uh in opposition um to allowing fall Sports to go ahead uh for naming safety reasons and then we did have two other uh comments come in one from Jill
097Hughes who asked if uh to please share this article um and quote with the board um and it's an article from uh The Washington Post uh which I will send around to everybody but the quote is uh in addition to academic gains black students taught by black teachers exhibited better behavioral outcomes according to 2015 research by Adam C Wright a professor of Economics at Western Washington University behavioral assessments of black students in the classroom significantly improve when they have a black teacher rather than a white teacher right found that as black students receive instruction from a greater number of black teachers the probability of suspension decreases in a 2017 study Wright and his team showed that students of color placed with a teacher of color were less like less likely to argue or act out
098than minority students placed with white teachers uh and again I'll send the link for that article around and then the uh last comment came in from Joan Walters who writes I was wondering if it would be possible to set up a bchs student drop off point at Eagle Elementary School School even though only 50% of the students will be going to school each day many more parents will be driving and dropping off and I understand that all students being dropped off are asked to arrive at the same time 7:45 a.m. all traffic currently has to exit to Delaware Avenue and this backs up through the parking lot and there are many conflicts with vehicles trying to enter from Delaware Avenue and exit to help alleviate traffic and separate the traffic arriving from the bypass from
099traffic arriving from Delaware Avenue it would be very helpful to use the Eagle Elementary School parking lot as a drop off point there is a crosswalk to the north side of the intersection that the students could use to walk over to the high school that would not conflict with turning Vehicles it looks like this area of the eagle parking lot may be used for bus parking but I assume that the timing of the high school drop off would not conflict with bus parking for Eagle thank you for considering and for all you are doing to make the school year happen um so parents actually already do that some of them um it's a a little trick um so they wouldn't conflict with Bus Parking if someone wanted to drop their child off and turn around
100and eagle or something like that the only thing I would just say is at that crosswalk uh no one stops at it generally so it would just be mindful that I mean they're high school kids so I assume that they can navigate a crosswalk but um so I think that there are some parents who've already figured that out that they can avoid the congestion and the students can walk across and get there but I think that's a viable option and with all of our drop off arrival and dismissal I think it's hard to know how that's going to go until we actually see the number of parents dropping off like we are trying to at the elementary stagger that time but we may need to adjust that uh a little further I know um at
101Slingerlands today they were having Chromebook pickup and the traffic got backed up onto Union Street and three police showed up because neighbors were complaining about the traffic no um and Heidi was a little concerned that this is potentially what it's going to look like every day um so I I think until we kind of get into the groove of the bus dropping off and the parents dropping off we are going to have to figure out what's going to work for traffic flow but sure that's an option people can take advantage of yeah I continue to have some concerns about what the middle school is going to look like um because it's already a yeah a tricky parking lot so we might have to make some adjustments so that's the one you know area when we're
102thinking about how that's going to work it's I'm not really sure until we actually experience it so Holly you should talk about the book that we're going to read for our Retreat since you picked it out you and Mer you and Meredith picked it out oh well we'll talk about it at our retreat but it's um if you want to hold it up uh the board is meeting um for a board retreat the end of of um September I think it's September 30th I might have the date wrong um whatever that Wednesday is um and this year for retreat um as you guys know we decided to read this book that Christine is holding up it's called why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria and other conversations about race um it's
103by Dr Beverly Tatum who was a former president of Spelman College and is a psychologist um and one of the reasons that uh we uh focused in on that book in particular is that um it really seemed to address a lot of issues that are gerine to education in particular um so I'm hoping that um everybody takes the time to read through it and that we can have a robust discussion um at our meeting I originally did read that back in 1997 since the 20th Ann the 20th anniversary edition so there's a lot of really new stuff added as well and some other essays are in there but yeah it's it's very timely so and thank you to everybody for in advance for taking the time to read it um I would also ask for
104public comment from the audience but I don't think we have anybody here unless there is somebody nope okay uh next on our agenda are action items uh a finance action items it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the following Finance action items 1 through 2 so moved second any discussion all in favor I any opposed any extensions that carries B Professional Personnel action items it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the following professional Personnel action items one 1 through 23 Second any discussion all in favor I I I any opposed any extensions that carries C support Personnel action items it is recommended that the Board of Education approve the following support staff action items 1 through 13 so second any discussion uh all in favor I any opposed any extensions that
105carries D other action items it is recommended that the Board of Education approved the following action items one and two so moved second any discussion all in favor any opposed any extensions that carries item 7 future meetings and events um our next board meeting is on Wednesday September 16th at 7 p.m. anticipating an executive session uh starting at 6 um Monday October 5th at 5:30 there is an audit committee meeting um Wednesday October 7th at 7 p.m. there's a regular board meeting um anticipating executive session at 6 um and then the meeting after that is on Wednesday October 21st at 7 um and anticipating an executive session at 6 um and if we can we should probably also try to get another policy committee meeting um on the calendar yeah I thought we'd schedule them
106for the year like we did last year that would be great y uh seeing no need to go back into EX ex cutive session can I have a motion to adjourn the meeting so mve second second um all in favor I meeting [Music] adjourned