001one with 100 people on it just let me know everybody could i have to shut it down as soon as it opens because i get feedback 100 people on it jamie okay is it working yes okay great and we have about one minute until uh it's 6 30 but i know dev likes to give us the final heads up our final go ahead and it is 6 30. okay great thanks welcome everybody nice to see everyone nice to have people who are watching us with us tonight thank you for taking time out of your busy evenings to be with us i'll open the meeting and ask everyone to stand for the pledge please i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation
002under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all great jamie i'll turn it right over to you i don't have anything tonight okay thank you good evening everybody it's great to see all of you as you can see we have some guests here with us this evening uh you can see mr kane our cult from music and you maybe even could see the stage and you'll be able to see that a little bit better in a moment but i figured we'd start with some fun stuff music in our lives month is march and as you may or may not know uh music has been a little bit missing from our lives simply because of the restrictions we're under and and it's difficult to do concerts and things like that but greg and his colleagues and
003all of our students have been just so fantastic trying to bring music to our students in an alternative format it has not been easy but they have been superstars in trying to make it look easy engaging and fun for our students and so without further ado i want to thank greg and all of his colleagues all of our music students and turn it over to greg hi everybody can you hear me okay yes greg right super thank you it's so nice to be here tonight i i want to thank everybody for taking a few minutes out of this meeting which i'm i'm sure they'll you know this isn't a busy time at all i'm sure tonight it's going to be a piece of cake right um but i really do i want to say thank
004you uh right off the bat in in as jamie recognized uh mentioned recognizing music in our schools month and uh as he as he said i am i'm a music teacher here at the academy and i'm also the curriculum area lead teacher in our district it's always such an honor to come to this meeting once a year i was thinking back earlier today i think it's we're coming up on 10 years of doing this every single year for any of you who've been a part of the border ad for for a while there but each year we try and bring a different act to the stage and usually the stage is like the bus garage or the cafeteria at the bus garage and uh this certainly um this certainly is a whole new level here
005for us today and i'll mention a couple words about that but uh i wanted to just start by by saying you know music in our schools month is something that's celebrated across the country it's not just certainly a canandaigua thing and it but but here in canada i just feel like every single year i have an opportunity to say i could say 10 great things about every level of instruction and in canada we teach them music from pre-k all the way up till 12th grade so there's always something um there's always something happy to share and and even this year you know with with everything that we've gone through and education has gone through in general music is still serving as a beacon of light for so many of our students so um you know
006every year the national association for music education they they sort of create a slogan or a theme for music in our schools month and i wanted to share that with you tonight i think it's really important and i think it connects with all of our kids here and and perhaps you at home in your own home but the theme of this year's music in our school's month is music the sound of my heart i i just think about how you know so many of us have really been living in isolated environments for the last year and and i know that when every single one of us looks deep inside of ourselves we can we can think of a moment in the last 367 days where where music has indeed impacted us in our lives at
007some point whether it's to bring calm and peace or focus or or whatnot it does something different for everyone and certainly for our students in school at every level it certainly does something for them too there's a huge social emotional piece with music education so as i mentioned you know in music and across our district this year included we have hundreds maybe a thousand students right now participating in in music ensembles despite the hybrid model and everything um but i i just jotted down a couple of thoughts but you know these these kids come to class still once a week or twice a week you know we're celebrating their creative spirit they're sharing joy with their classmates they're feeling at home with their peers especially up here at the high school as you guys know
008the music wing is just its own little bustling village um you know they taking chances in front of other students and perhaps more so than ever before in their lives as musicians they're taking chances putting themselves out there i like to think they're demonstrating good character certainly building teamwork and of course they're learning to be musicians that's what we teach is music so there's a myriad of great things that take place you know in addition to that so so as everything has unfolded in the last year i got to say this i feel optimistic tonight i shared with the students here you're going to meet in a second um you know this kind of felt normal i put a tie on and we have nice pants on and shoes and and we're up here on
009our beautiful stage and it's it's such a thrill to be able to say that um but i'm also really proud of canandaigua and i and i have to say that from the top of my lungs i don't know how to say it any stronger but i want to thank three people three groups of people the first one is those look for our students this has not been easy and it's not what anybody signed up for at any level in any area and i see them in class and i see them coming back every day at every level and i just i really i want to say thank you because they're they're out there and they're doing it so so thank you guys for that the 12 foot life as some of you know it's almost
010impossible for some kids but but um you know no matter how small the victory has seemed this year i i think it's it's projected us forward so so thank you to our students i also want to say thank you to every teacher in our department i think we have 14 in total right now music teachers in this department pre-k through 12. they started working on plans for a safe return in music education probably last may and they were all over the summer constantly communicating i think we can do it here and i am so proud to share that with the exception of our beginner instrumentalists we are offering music instruction this year at every single level which is just a fantastic thing to be able to say and i know that very personally from other
011districts and then lastly several of you are here tonight and i know some of you are tuning in as well but to every administrator in our school district i don't know how to say it loud enough during this year in particular but you know i never once in this process this year heard a doubt or a challenge or saw a red flag go up that talked about boy you know i don't think i just don't think we can do that they constantly leaned in and asked us all of you you asked us you know how can we do this safely you know what do you guys think you're the ones on here you're the boots on the floor you know you guys know best in your area so and because of that we're able to
012offer kids as much as we are this year so i wish i could present you some citation of like statewide excellence or something but um i think i'm going to present these great kids to you instead tonight so so thanks for that so look we've got thank you michelle so i have some time in august when we figured out who was going to be in which cohort and what school was going to look like my schedule showed up and let's see jazz ensemble one on the gray cohort day had three students in it and i said to myself well boy what the heck how are we gonna do that and then i then i leaned in a little closer and i saw the three students who were there and i got really excited really quickly
013first of all all of them play saxophone really really well and um they have been kind of a rock for me this year because we we see each other once a week for 40 minutes and we four of us rehearse really safely in the band room and um it's it's such a been such a pleasure and for me personally as a musician it brought great comfort to me because we were playing and tonight will be our first time kind of playing pub i'm going to walk you around the stage here i'm not going to fall off the stage but i asked everybody to just introduce themselves okay i asked every oh jamie went too quick here all right so over here we've got hi i'm marina schneider i'm in 11th grade and i'm in wind
014ensemble jazz ensemble and the sound and i just love being part of this program this sound hi i'm brynn rice i'm in 12th grade i am in wind ensemble um this jazz ensemble the other jazz ensemble and the sound i say the same sentiment hi i'm chris from rose i'm in wind ensemble i'm in new jazz i'm in this and i'm a senior that's right so look these are three fantastic students here at the high school wow you can see me walking across the stage isn't that weird okay these are three fantastic kids here and we're excited we're going to play a piece called the irish suite we're a little bit late for st patrick's day we hope we hope you forgive us on that one this is arranged by a composer and um uh
015music professor actually from the crane school of music and potsdam my alma mater named elliot del borgo and uh this piece of music has three different sections in it there's a dance there's a really beautiful lullaby and then at the end there's a piece called the irish washer woman which i think most of you will know i need to move my laptop here and mr rogers is going to take over in the back and doesn't everybody play another notebook i [Music] me [Music] be my [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] m foreign [Music] me b [Applause] [Music] [Applause] that was awesome awesome awesome we give you a standing ovation that was just fantastic thank you so much genie and thanks to everybody again for having us here tonight and i wish you all well
016throughout the rest of this meeting oh our hearts thank you so much that it you're it's just always a joy to have your musicians with us um and this one was particularly moving thank you everybody thank you so much thanks guys have a great night you too i wish i went first i really don't want to follow that and maybe we just canceled this whole board meeting and just have them continue to play as well wow fantastic so the only other part i have is a sizable piece um which is really kind of our cobit update which we've been doing for months now and uh reopening planning which i know we've advertised widely and why we have a fairly large audience here tonight i think we're just around 300 now which is fantastic so uh
017i'm going to share my screen if you all don't mind i know it's difficult because we can't see each other when i do that as well but i have a slideshow everybody can you see that okay can i get a thumbs up if you can thank you good thank you so uh let's start with a lot of the pieces here and by all means if you have questions interject you don't need to wait till the end but if it's easier to wait to the end then we can do that as well ultimately at the end i'd like to hear from the board uh your reactions to what i present your thoughts your reflections anything you think we ought to consider anything you think i'm missing um but really what we're going to talk a bit
018about is what we need what is needed to fully reopen there's a lot of buzz right now around fully reopening what timeline might we have for a full reopening uh what guidance can we anticipate for full in-person learning and then any questions again at the end will be time for questions let's take a look at our covet numbers um this is for students again this is the gray is quarantined for those of you tuning in for the first time the gray scale is quarantined and the red is isolation remember isolation means that they have covid uh the gray quarantine means they could have been exposed to somebody with covet and now they have to quarantine as a result these are the student numbers and this is coming off of the holiday break at our peak
019at one time we had as many as 75 students in quarantine and we had as many as 24 students at one time with covid last week for three consecutive days we reported zero students with covet there is some questions about that zero number and we we did do a little footnote in the communication to try to explain it we did actually have one student who was presumed positive with covid last week presumed positive means that they have fairly compelling symptoms of covid and the doctors have confidence in saying you have coveted um you know you need to isolate the way it's set up right now in the department of health portal is we can only report positive cases if there's an actual positive test and presume positive individuals they don't actually take the test and
020so we did have one presumed positive case last week that resulted in some students in that classroom quarantining as a precaution uh but the rate for reporting purposes there was actually one day before we had to presume positive and then we had two days with the presumed positive that we didn't that wasn't reported as per protocol and you'll see we have a little bit of an uptick we actually have three students in isolation right now and two that are presumed positive on top of that so in total of five and then 24 and quarantine so it is you can see it's climbing a little bit we don't necessarily know why but what i can tell you is anytime there's a case we have to assist the department of health with contact tracing vern tenney does
021the majority of that for us 99.9 percent of it i shouldn't say that high the building principles do quite a bit coaches advisors they do quite a bit as well and so it is a shared lift but vern is the point person for that uh what i can tell you is you know out of curiosity today i kind of sent an email to vernon and said i just wonder how many people we've had in quarantine because of a potential school exposure and how many ended up getting coveted because of a potential school exposure we've had almost 200 covic cases throughout the course of this year we've had almost 700 cases of quarantine we can trace back at most three instances where perhaps six total people may have contracted cobit on campus and they all involve
022our adults they don't involve our students now again this isn't i can't say it with certainty we do our best to contact trace as does the department of health and they make their best judgments based on the information that is shared with them but what i can tell you is when people quarantine because of a potential exposure at school it's very rarely very rare that they actually end up having covet down the road from that exposure where it happens most of times through quarantine is if it's in the family so someone has to quarantine because a family member has it and then it works its way through the family that's what we see most often and then for our staff um again positive numbers in a good way not positive is in a bad way
023but you'll see at the peak of our uh staff with covid we had as many as 10 at any one time in uh we had as many as 19 in isolation and you remember sometimes it was tough to stab in certain buildings where sometimes those those quarantines were all isolated in a certain building building but what the good news is since february 17th you follow this red line across this is our staff covet cases so now we're over a month without a singular staff coveted case i'm knocking on wood because i want that trying to continue but at the same time perhaps a lot of it has to do with the uh the vaccination you know we know we were aggressive with the vaccination and many many staff here uh received it we do see
024our quarantine numbers have have pre stayed pretty consistent three two to three uh for about a month but we see it's up to five right now um and so it did jump up a little bit uh some of that has to do with uh staff members who have family here and their student has it and now because they're a family member they're in quarantine as well so a bit of that has to do with that as well which is to be expected but as you can see our numbers overall have trended in a very good direction since the holiday break and as of today like i said reporting in the portal we have three cases one at the primary school and two at the academy so we still need to wear masks the cdc did
025release that if you've had the vaccination or have had covet you can gather in your home without masks with other people that doesn't apply to school it's still the masks in a public place is still about utmost importance in fact i'll share some information in a bit that it you know the science is pointing to the fact that the mask is is the major factor in controlling the spread of covid so we are saying continue to do preventative measures wear a mask wash your hands socially distance in you know wiping down hard surfaces and things like that so what's needed for a full reopening you probably saw i know you saw because i shared it with you on friday the cdc released new guidance that moved the six-foot measurement to three feet in schools and
026a lot of that was based on a study that was done in massachusetts that i also have shared with the community that really showed there's there's no discernible difference in transmission rates between three feet of distancing versus six foot of distancing when wearing masks uh and a lot like i'll go back to the science continues to show that covid is transmitted through the air through the aerosols in the air there is not a lot of evidence that's really showing that covet is transmitted through surfaces all right and so you know we think about some of the things we've done this year where we we clean hard surfaces between individual use so if i'm in a science if i'm a science teacher and we have two kids using a beaker we clean it before the next
027person uses it all right clean between individual use that really um changes the way you teach you know you have to slow things down a little bit you have to be much more thoughtful about time that it takes to do those things we also are cleaning uh high touch surfaces consistently throughout the day door knobs and things that push bars and things like that and we continue to do that but maybe the science is pointing to the fact that is it as essential as we thought we were also quarantining uh library books uh for a week essentially and so um it's really making us rethink some of those things but no changes have been made i just want to be clear about that we're just kind of following the research and trying to learn more
028about it um oh so i talked about that a bit sorry about that so what we're hearing is uh as you know a couple weeks ago dr fauci over the weekend alluded to he felt like cdc guidance was coming soon new guidance was coming soon and it did he made that statement i think on a saturday or sunday and then the friday following cdc guidance came about dr zucker he speaks for the new york state department of health he has also been saying over and over again that new guidance is coming soon uh the unfortunate part is he started saying that about four weeks ago now and uh said it would be probably within a week i mean he was pressed to say a week he was reluctant to say a week but he you
029know he did say a week and here we are in four weeks which is substantially longer than that and then dr mendoza in monroe county uh released a letter and a press release on friday of last week and i didn't i didn't end up sharing that with you we're not in monroe county uh but it's out there for public consumption where he urges the new york state department of health uh to revisit the guidelines and adopt fully the cdc guidelines is how it was worded in the meantime he has created some guidance documents for schools to follow that he is not made public that does align closely with the cdc which leads me to believe that maybe he knew some of the stuff was coming and what some of that verbiage was in his role
030maybe he's privy to that beforehand and so you know that's really pushed our thinking a bit and then ontario county public health they are supportive of schools efforts to fully reopen they're supportive of what cdc is saying but they do not believe they have the authority to make any kind of change in protocol without the new york state department of health authorizing that and it's a little bit funny because last week this was actually on the new york state department of health website and i underlined the last line that just said that determinations are purview of the county health departments and this is in reference to the six feet versus three feet and i've shared this with our local public health and they're great let me just be clear they're great they're very supportive they
031want to work with us but they're getting mixed messages they're getting mixed messages from the state and from things like this that are saying two totally separate things and for those of us that have been knee-deep in the weeds since august and july that doesn't come as a surprise we've been getting mixed messages since this began and so i i feel bad for the position they're in people are seeing this and pressuring our local public health believe me they want to help us but they also don't want to do something that's going to cause them trouble from our state department of health and so they're really you know they're they're in a tough situation and i certainly respect and acknowledge that so here's what cdc basically says and and i won't go into all the
032details i'll talk about that with a little bit of our reopening plan concepts uh and again i'll say that these are just concepts we can't even make this happen unless more things can happen from the state level so more leniency can come our way and so i just want to preface that and i'll say that multiple times probably but the cdc is saying in elementary schools kids can be three feet apart in the classroom as long as they're wearing masks and they're saying that can happen in low moderate or high risk doesn't matter how much your transmission is in your community the cdc things the elementary primary elementary school kids can be back at three feet which i think was funny if you watched 60 minutes last night some of the data they showed is
033the primary elementary kid the transmission is higher than the secondary and so again here we go with this conflicting information this conflicting research that makes it really hard to navigate but at the middle and high school level they can also be returned at three feet according to cdc so long as your community is low moderate or substantial risk category not high risk if you're determined to be high risk you have to shift shift back to six feet and i'll let you know according to mary beer on friday of last week we were still on what would be categorized by cdc standards as substantial risk so substantial risk does allow would allow us by cdc standards to return it three feet but you know we're close to that high risk cut off as well and so
034people find that surprising you know we're doing well in the region our numbers are coming down but by cdc standards we're barely into the substantial category um and so that i just summarized what's on this page i wasn't about to read it all to you so also in the document that dr mendoza was working on and hasn't released and i hope he does eventually if things start to loosen up because i thought it was really founded in common sense and it really gave some ability to make decisions that make sense for each community and so some personalization but he alluded to it and in the cdc document they alluded to these mitigating strategies or mitigating measures that you could put in place to help reduce a risk of transmission and they're listed here but really
035notably and you know this we were about to order about 50 000 worth of barriers last week and the truth of the matter is the reason we've been not wanting to do that all year long is we we don't believe they do anything you know think back to what i said earlier uh covet is transmitted through the air and um not necessarily on the surface and so if i have a plastic barrier like this in front of me and i'm breathing aerosols are going above it around it and everything they're not they're not captured within the barrier unless we have a barrier where we kind of put people in a bubble and zip them in um you know barrier does very little to nothing and so cdc removed the barrier concept from their guidance and
036again conflicting evidence we have counties across the state that are saying buy barriers and reopen at three feet and we'll reimburse you for those barriers and so when community members hear that they think well barriers are the answer they only make you feel better they only make you feel safer in my opinion again i don't that's my opinion uh but other other measures increased ventilation systems which we've done all along you know that we update you almost every board meeting jen does dr jen does we open windows as you know oftentimes i'm in here freezing during these board meets because you know deb and my windows are open it's nice out now so i like it even better but we've had them open all year long and many of our teachers and staff have as
037well uh air purification systems we have uh installed some of these throughout the district we would consider installing more in like cafeterias and things like that if we move forward with reopening and we have some quotes on those they are scientifically proven to be valid and effective cohorting and potting and i'll talk a little bit about that later on but that's an important piece that um you know there's some ambiguity around it but i think it has potential and i just want to talk about what that looks like of course masking talked about distancing three feet six feet as many feet as possible uh doing those things hand washing cleaning disinfecting and then health screening contact raising so many of these things we're already doing but just a reminder and so our goal is ultimately
038we need to get back to normal eventually whether it's five days of virtual synchronous learning or five days of in person we we want to be back here but at this point you know we need the new york state department of health to give some guidance uh in fact this evening if you look at the democrat and chronicle there was an article um from the super well it was an article in the paper the president of the superintendents in monroe county is a superintendent at greece uh mrs groutman dr groutman and she indicated that monroe county schools are moving forward with planning for a full reopening what people seem to confuse is this whole notion of i'm planning for reopening is that's a line in the sand we're reopening on that date and that's not
039what many schools are saying right now very few are saying that they're saying we're planning to reopen but we need to get authorization we need to have support from the local department of health the new york state department of health or the local department of health and cdc whatever combination that is they need authorization and support to do that i did talk on the phone with our uh legal counsel today and asked the question you know who do we technically have to follow cbc new york state department of health our local public health and without even really hesitating they indicated the new york state department of health that's who you should be following they've created rules and you may be opening yourself up to liability if you don't have lis your local department of health
040or your new york state department of health um supporting your efforts in supporting the plan dr groutman also said you know the state could reject these plans you know they could create reopening plans and the state could say no that doesn't meet our guidelines it's you can't reopen fully and so there's just so much still up in the air uh in in schools have been put in a tough spot also you know people uh kind of sometimes read or hear what they want to hear or what they think they hear they get kind of confused with the details and uh this weekend i was getting a lot of text messages from some of our staff i was getting emails from community members saying so-and-so is opening on this date so and so is opening on
041this date and they're usually pretty surprised that i'm i'm actually friends with almost all the superintendents and so i'll shoot them a text and say did you say you're opening on this date and they'll say no we said we hope to if big if we can if we're allowed to you know that's we're planning for and so that's what i'm here presenting to all of you is you know i'd like to be planning for a full reopening i think the cdc gave us enough information where we kind of see where it might go and then therefore we will be able to plan for and anticipate i'd rather anticipate than react if possible and i'll acknowledge anticipating and putting work into it could be wasted effort it could be but um i think it would be
042worthwhile so that we're prepared if it can happen so again at this point what i'm saying is we would put a survey out after our board meeting tonight if people are kind of on board here and this makes sense to follow this procedure i would host up two forums tomorrow uh one at 3 45 really targeted at staff anybody can come and then one in the evening i think i think it's done here in a later slide but i think it's 6 or 6 30 and that would be more for the community and i would present this exact same presentation to help people understand where we are and why we're here and what these reopening what it might look like so that they can make a selection to finish the year you know they could
043say i want to be if we're going to come back fully in person i want to be fully in person or i would like to finish the year virtually remote people can change or stay the same it's their choice they'll also be in that survey a survey for staff and and we would ask them have you did you get the vaccine the governor did issue an executive order where we are supposed to be collecting that information and submitting it through the department of health but they've given us no mechanism to do it so we've been reluctant but since the survey is going out what i'd be inclined to do in there is for peace of mind i'll put that question in there for staff and the answers could be yes i have both doses or
044i'm fully vaccinated or yes i have the first shot um no or i care not to answer you know something like that right now um because that might give us a general sense and then also for staff they could put in there do they want to be considered to be a virtual teacher to finish the year or in person and we will do our very best to accommodate it we've been able to so so far for the most part we've really done a nice job thank you brian nolan for making that happen and all the principles and then but the parents could pick you know five days a week in person or virtual to finish the year here's the interesting thing this document you're seeing is the same document pretty much we've used all along
045since august we built it that way on purpose and so the only difference is if you pick virtual it's 100 instruction remotely synchronously monday through friday currently it's monday tuesday uh thursday friday we would change it to five days a week this is the exact same piece over here and when people if you think back to august when people picked their selection they picked in-person learning but because of the the rules we have to follow with the state it put us in the middle hybrid learning and i said all along this is a continuum if those rules loosen we might be able to bump it up here to fully in person five days a week or if the infection rates get bad and the rules get uh become more restrict it might bump down to
046fully remote you know this was something i said i don't know how many times in forums so it shouldn't be new to people it really was our plan all along and so they'd be picking this piece if the rules will allow for it and so really you know this week is more about educating informing learning reading the cdc guidance trying to anticipate uh putting the survey out there having it due monday of next week in the morning hopefully people will fill it out by friday that would be really helpful because our principals need to have that and directors in hand so they can start comparing who's switching and how much reworking of our calendar do we or our schedule do we need to do um and then hopefully we'll work on that for two to
047three weeks and then be prepared for a full reopening anytime between monday april 19th to monday may 17th in that time frame the reason i suggest that time frame um i think april 19th is probably the size of our district the earliest we could be ready and that's a hopeful that's a hopeful piece and it's the full fourth quarter you know so that would give a full um 10 weeks of instruction in person but i want to preface that by saying if we were to do that and reopen fully i don't want staff or parents to think oh great we can hit the ground running with instruction and just really hammer it out for the rest of the year because we need to onboard people we need to re-acclimate people we need to be there
048to provide sel support we haven't been in school for over a year and there'll be a lot more work to do than just hit the ground running with instruction and the first thing we need to take care of is people with social uh emotional mental health uh that'll be of utmost importance and so and the reason i kind of say may is the last date that would only give us five weeks of in-person instruction uh anything less than five weeks is going to cause a sig this will be a significant disruption in a lot of ways uh anything less than five weeks i worry um you know we shouldn't be so disruptive in the middle of a quarter at the end of the year and guess what part of that we have new york state
049assessments three through eight which i'll talk about in a minute and regents exams there's a lot of pieces in there that would also be a disruption and so really it's us trying to prepare anticipate based on what we're hearing and plan such that if the rules do change and we have certain public support from the department of health that we will be ready to leverage and start in person anywhere between that time frame april 19th to may 17th so what would it look like and this is based on what i'm hearing from people like dr mendoza the cdc um this is the piece that people are going to need to know so they can make their selections one in classrooms you see a picture here where classes they're spaced out six feet it would be
050three feet so three feet is measured the same way six was really middle of desk to middle of desk or middle of seat to middle of seat what you'll see is it's actually um that's a normal distance in fact normally the way we set up classrooms are a little bit larger than three feet the difficulty is where there are desks you know we our tables i'm sorry a lot of teachers have moved away from desks because you know tables are more collaborative more conversational and there's a lot of great things that can happen with that so that is that's a problem but with a table if you have students at either end of the table you can have still that three feet in between them so what i'm telling you is our principles are working
051and they'll make certain that in classrooms students will be three feet apart in the cafeteria this is where i want to talk about this whole pod cohort system again it's a little bit ambiguous it's a little bit vague um i've i've talked this out with some uh department of health directors i've talked this out with with our legal counsel and a variety of people and just to say check my thinking does this seem to kind of match what the language is saying and would this work and the answer has been yes and so the document in cdc alludes to pods and cohorting dr mendoza's as well the concept is this um you in the cafeteria you you could use your tables as normal and have students assigned to the tables that is your assigned pod
052that is your assigned cohort such that it and you sit there each time you have lunch so that if there was an exposure the exposure would be limited to those kids at that pod only and it would help with contact tracing and it would keep it contained more so and so again that would be the concept that we're currently sure we could do we could make that happen uh one of the things we are in the process of working on but it is not easy because cdc does also say when they're eating their mask is off they need to be at six feet but the next sentence it references this cohorting and pod thing and it says you can pull her and pod and keep six feet between the cohorts in pods so in other
053words if i have a table that's a cohort the next table has to be six feet away so it doesn't impact them uh and that's what it looks like but we are working on concepts of uh doing lunches at six feet and using every possible space we can find uh we are worried about our ability to monitor and supervise those all those extra spaces but we're working on it in hopes that this plant a with the pods and cohorting could work and people understand it and agree to it um if not plan b can we can we do this six foot thing um and we have a lot of things we're looking at for that with busing in the cdc guidance it says one per or six feet where possible all right so where possible
054the language tells me that maybe not always it will be possible what i can tell you is seth and his team has done a great job pulling attendance numbers on the bus we have 59 runs right now of those 59 40 of them if the parents will continue to drive at the rate that they're currently driving 40 of them will be easily within one per seat which is what we're currently doing out of the 59. five of them might be is slightly over um but if they're in the same household they can sit together so it doesn't account for that and so five of those have five over what it would take so we have 24 seats in a bus and so 40 of the 59 are at 24 or less five of them are
055at 25 to 30. and so if they're from the same household they can sit together so very likely those five so would be compliant so 45 out of the 59 and then our largest is 59 we only have two buses that are in the 50s and one's 52 and 159 if they came together and so what that would mean though if you're doing the math is no more than two in a c which is still favorable number one number two it's what many schools in monroe county have been doing all along uh they they went forward with that um process with transportation and uh i talked to them constantly we're not in monroe county but our size is more like them i talk to them all the time and they have not had busing issues
056and then the words of dr mendoza when they shared that data he said i don't think we need any more data then you just prove that it's safe so i think the cdc document gives us a little bit of latitude and our numbers are fairly favorable on those buses as is dismissal at pes is uh that the new product is great to dismiss kids but it takes time it's about a half an hour to dismiss and so one of the proposals we're working on is this missile is a cherry and a gray dismissal and we would rotate it by week so that everybody had a fair opportunity at normal dismissal time so in other words sherry would dismiss this week at normal time if they're getting picked up by a parent and then gray during
057the same week would dismiss a half an hour later and what we would do is we would work with staff and we pay staff to stay late and supervise the gray group in different locations throughout the building to help coordinate dismissal and then the next week we would flop it and and gray would dismiss at normal time and get getting picked up by parents and cherry would get dismissed a half an hour later it would take about an hour to do all at once and we'd prefer not to have people waiting in a car in line for an hour it would back up onto the streets and really cause congestion but doing it this way we think could manage it in an easier fashion we don't anticipate there being an issue with the middle school
058or academy any more than normal you know so far it's been really great and we hope it would stay that way even if we doubled the capacity um shared equipment we're still looking for guidance on this but what i can tell you is i'm gonna combine phys ed and shared equipment together because you know that's a place that they share there's a lot of equipment and they've really been restricted in what they can do in the cdc guidance it's talking about um cleaning equipment between cohorts and groups not individual use and so if i'm if we're playing tennis and phys ed we have limited tennis rackets let's pretend um before i give it to somebody else to use i have to clean it if it's during class but now we would only clean it at
059the end of class before the next cohort comes in uh this is the cdc guidance again we're still waiting on new york state department of health the way in but that's what they're suggesting and uh in talking with um our call for pe and health today i said would that be would that be helpful if we moved to that and she said more helpful than you would ever imagine that would really change our lives for the better um i also asked cdc says six feet with a mask in instead of 12 feet and they would they would welcome that with open arms from what i was told from our pe cult and really where they're saying that from is you know sports have proven that they can do it safely you know those and out
060of season training those are the protocols they're following currently and it's working um and same with bannon chorus you know you saw tonight some of our musicians performing with their performance masks on and you know that this is something we've advocated for a while right now our extracurricular performing arts groups are allowed to perform at six feet with masks and bell covers and we have our local department of health who has agreed if we have no issues with that and no outbreaks from that that for fourth quarter starting april 19th we can do that for um credit bearing music classes so general music classes and things like that move to six feet and so everybody's really excited about that and we're happy to hear that it also matches the cdc guidance um and so really
061uh people you need to know if you're switching learning models probably switching teachers you know so if you're going to virtual to in-person or in person to virtual you're probably going to switch teachers that's most likely going to happen at the at the middle school in academy you may not be able to take some of the classes if you remember when people selected virtual we couldn't offer every class in a virtual format we tried our best to accommodate but we couldn't offer all of them and people just need to be aware of those things and they would need to be able to they can make their selection they could we can build the schedule and say this is what it would look like and then they could say you know that's too much disruption let's
062just finish the way we are you know they could have that say but people do need to know that you know changes could happen um regardless there could be changes in people because right now we have about 20 of our folks that are learning uh virtually what if that number went to 35 what if it went to uh 10. you know we have to shift staff to match that also uh we have a great uh sel team and so you know they'll be our counselors our social workers our psychologists our prevention specialist they'll be there to really be there for our students and our staff through this whole process we'll be working closely with them uh state assessments three through eight math and ela assessments are still on all we have is session one when
063there's not a session two like there has been a in the past so it'll be a one day session one uh and it's all multiple choice i believe and they've taken out all the the um the field test questions they're no longer in there uh so it'll be a shortened version regents exams the four regions are still on although we've submitted a waiver and we'll wait and see if it changes between now and then we're working on plans for commencement commencement the ball the prom all kind of still up in the air but we're watching closely and then there's been no changes with athletics it's still the same we heard a little bit of a push last week when the governor said professional sports can have x number of people at their stadiums and venues
064and things like that people say can we go to more than just two fans per athlete but that's not change that's the same still spring break is next week and we have a whole lot of kids coming to school in spring break at the grades 6 through 12. so we're calling it inter session and it'll be working on doing the work and helping kids catch up and learn we have we have a lot of students volunteering to be there and help as well not for themselves to be doing work but helping their peers i think we had like 60 volunteer feminism maybe it was 30 something i might have exaggerated um we're looking to expand intervention services to after school maybe to wednesdays and things like that for folks and so we're working through those
065plans right now and trying to coordinate all the logistics we're really looking at interesting concepts for summer school where it's totally different and available to way more families and children than ever before we're also looking at things for themed weeks maybe we do a robotics week and it's focused on math and science but also we have a robotics teacher and kids there to show that literacy week where we have someone that's passionate about poetry come and work with our kids but focus on language arts and so um and people can sign up for certain weeks and so we're really looking to expand this and thinking out of the box knowing that federal dollars are likely coming our way for us and then next year um because we believe we'll have some federal dollars for a
066few years focused on gap recovery can we expand before and after school program and can we learn from other schools around us that have substantial grants and have built out these programs for many years now we'll be meeting with them and hearing from what from them what their plan their programs look like and what can we mimic and bring here uh for next year for our students so these plans still go forward so if if this sounds reasonable you know to continue to plan and prepare i'll host two forums tomorrow one at 3 45 and 116. we'll put a survey out uh i think that's the next slide we'll put a survey out on wednesday morning and have it due on the following monday and that way the principals and directors can start planning and
067thinking and they'll work with their counselors after break to start planning for it um and i'd be rumous if i didn't say this has been tough it's been really hard and i fully know that no matter what we decide people are going to be disappointed upset and maybe even angry it's not a position i envy being in it's not a position i'm thankful that any of you are in however i am thankful that you're in it with me uh because uh you know you've been a great sounding board you're so thoughtful and supportive and i really appreciate that and so i've talked a very long time which i don't normally like to do i'm going to stop sharing my screen and i'm going to ask you for reflections thoughts feedback michelle yeah first jamie thank
068you for your presentation and i know we've talked about this several times but there isn't going to be a win-win here because of you know we're balancing parents and and students who want to be a hundred percent back versus families that are still very very nervous and i think we have to continue to plan for the unexpected particularly after you know we have no idea what's going to happen after spring break so for those hundreds of you that are listening we just need to remind you to make good choices right and um you know kind of an obvious statement but but those are the kinds of things that well even if we get the go ahead we'll trip us up so this is uh we're all in it together as a community and thanks again
069for your leadership and hard work on this jamie i know sometimes it feels like a thankless job but you are appreciated and so is your team well said thank you michelle questions john echoing what michelle said which i usually don't like to do but i'll do tonight um yes like i was joking with you before you know what's once we all go back what are you gonna do uh you know you're not gonna get 100 emails a day and everything else but my concern is new york state obviously you'll get a broad announcement but no no directive most likely no details in their announcement and what um what uh have we heard anything is whether or not you know hybrid is out um 100 online can still be offered is there an outside chance new
070york state can come in and say everyone has to go back full time or district you can offer all three models yeah those are great questions uh i would be surprised by anything anymore to be honest with you i don't think we have the capacity and flexibility to offer all three i just don't i don't think we can do hybrid in-person virtual um this shift alone is going to be difficult for our staff and and you're you're strong i mean it's been a struggle all year long it is so challenging so i do think we'll be able to continue to offer virtual for the rest of this year i would be shocked if they did away with that i'm almost thinking they're probably going to make us offer it next year as well we'll see
071i mean time will tell i don't really know it's hard to project today the governor was asking the second presser about the cdc guidance and will new york state move it from six feet to three feet and he really was kind of aloof about it didn't even didn't seem to even know what was in the cdc guidance and had to defer to some of his team members to to respond to it which was disappointing um this morning california did move their entire state to three feet which i thought was positive news for us um you know in a lot of ways if you follow politics but i worry about that too john and you know it's interesting early last week there seemed to be so much energy and support from the department of health locally
072uh monroe ontario variety of them you know change is coming cdc maybe it's coming and then i would all i can say over the weekend it just felt like people were getting cold feet and so i asked you know what is that about and i said is there could there be something coming from the state that would cause local folks to have cold feet and all i got for a response is a singular word yes and they wouldn't they didn't have a liberty to elaborate but if you can read between the lines it sounds like our local leaders feel like we're at a point where we can start to reopen but something is happening where they're not getting the go-ahead from the state level and they're a little bit worried about it without their without
073their endorsement that that's concerning it is just to clarify um in order to continue virtual learning next year we do need state approval that's not that's a lot of local decisions like i think that just bears repeating now we don't get to make that decision because of seat time correct thank you other questions or comments or concerns [Music] jen um i'm just going to start with some logistics challenges that i i wonder about mentioned uh pods and cohorts for uh cafeteria time for do example expect that students would be able to have any input or families any input into that part of the reason why i'm thinking about that is certain families already have established pseudo pods outside of school so if we were to randomly assign kids to a pod that those kids don't
074see each other outside of the school building we actually might be actually fighting exposure that's already happening or adding to exposure that's already happening i certainly wouldn't want children to to be pushed aside or not chosen so i'm i'm also a little worried about that but i see some efficacy in allowing families to say you know we've chosen to have this family as part of our family pot so it may make sense to have kids sit together anyway because they're already doing it on a saturday night or something you're clearly in my office when brian and i were talking earlier today because that's exactly what we talked about it's tough you know we do have families that have kind of their this is our circle or this is our sphere and they interact with their
075family and you know why that makes sense to have them together but to your point as well then we have to deal with the whole um the you know feeling of left out piece as well but we i think we can navigate that i think we can we have great staff and it makes perfect sense fussing too so to go along with that um we are one of those families that that transports our kids two days a week and i probably shouldn't say this on the internet but i already see some sort of rock paper scissors thing that's going to go on in the snyder house when it goes to five days a week that's a lot to manage so i'm not sure that all families would be capable of staying in the same mode
076that they are when you increase the number of trips that need to be taken so i think that that's something that we really need to get both clarity and some solid numbers to understand what capacities might be and if you want to swing by and pick up my kids that'd be great too thanks jen and deb knows that um i felt compelled you know we were asking our parents to drive their kids to school i have three kids here myself and i've committed to driving to school every day and it's tough you know i come in i work i go i drive them i come back and work and it extends my day it's tough but i felt it was important that you know if we're asking parents to do this i'm a parent here
077too and i'm gonna find a way to do it and i think you know everybody for allowing me to try to make that happen but i get it it's really challenging and i work here so it's probably less challenging for me um versus other people and yeah that's noted other questions or comments julianne have we thought about for lunch in particular because that seems to be one of the logistical challenges with the with obviously they don't have masks on have we thought about especially given the time of year utilizing outdoor space for lunch where you know either with tents or something like that the way you know we we did some of the outdoor classrooms in the fall and we're sort of lucky in terms of when this could even have the potential to start
078you're likely to have more good weather than bad though i've now probably jinxed it um have we have we thought about utilizing that as well we have actually hold on julian i'm going to mute you just because there was feedback there i apologize uh we have talked about utilizing open um outdoor spaces for example at the primary elementary school or at least i'll say the elementary they've been trying to take them outside on nice days you know but we do live in central western new york and the weather doesn't always cooperate which makes it tough i did talk to the city about tents um you know we could do it we'd have to have the fire chief or the fire department inspect it and certify it and we'd also have to have sed approve it
079and nothing sed as fast anymore uh the boarding they're you know they're home they work remotely and you can't call them it makes it makes it challenging and i'll i'm just going to be honest i don't think tents are they're a temporary solution and we need to figure out more permanent solutions um and so really that's the challenge we're working on right now is how can we do this within our own structures and with our own spaces but it's going to create hardship it's going to displace people uh during lunches if we you know i was i'll just we were all no ideas were off the table and i was you know those little um foam pads that you kneel on for uh gardening i said what if we or at the primary element we
080order one of those for all kids and then we find like a little plastic bin that they flipped upside down they put their tray on they could sit in the gymnasium you know we're just thinking out of the box because you know and then you can stack them or disinfect them and you know i think we have to try to create we've been thinking as creatively as we can um but yes we would intend to bring them outside on nice days if we could and we could supervise it that's the other challenge the more space is the more supervision you need jen i would like to support julianne's idea i you know the more that we could get kids outside if it's a decent day or even if it's not so great a day we
081all live in western new york we've learned to survive when it's not a great day um get kids outside then you're you're not building any potential concentration in the school you you've got an ultimate ability to space them out i understand all the challenges but i think that's something we're really thinking about even if we're not able to get a tent on the property yes thank you megan has there been any discussion about like children who buy lunch maybe eating in the cafeteria versus children who bring lunch staying in the classroom i mean i know staffing that might cause an issue but i feel like that would spread them out enough where maybe you'd be able to have enough distance between them um where you know that would help thanks megan so that would be
082really as you know specific to the primary elementary school for the most part it would create that cohorting issue a little bit to a degree we'd have to keep the cohort six feet away but one of the conversations we had with mr amesbury at the elementary school is a combination of in classroom outside and because kids haven't eaten in a cafeteria at all this year to do a rotation where they all get an experience eating in the cafeteria and so maybe a couple classes and they're spread out and so really kind of looking at different options where they could rotate them through so that's kind of similar to what i think it's similar to what you were saying about there megan one thing i wanted to mention too that i might have forgotten and i've
083been checking my phone to see if somebody texts me that i forgot something i did get a confirmation that it was 36 student volunteers uh for intercession although another administrator said it was 78 so it's somewhere between 36 and 78 um but the students have to be separated by three feet the adults have to be six feet by cdc guidance i can't remember if i said that you know if you think about a classroom in the teacher's instructional space at the board and then the students are at their tables or desks certainly there's usually six feet of separation now they could go closer to quickly to you know demonstrate something but then back to their teaching zone kind of what they've been doing all year long other questions milton so jamie you you alluded to
084this earlier about some of the strategies for addressing some of the shortcomings of seat this year with uh funds from the recovery act do any of the costs associated with reopening are they going to be able to be supported by the by any of those recovery acts or no see matt pitch reaching for his mute button go ahead matt simple answer milton is uh we don't know um we really don't we don't know what our allocation will be for the american recovery act still i know there's numbers that have been published out there um you know some estimates um we don't know what those numbers really are going to be um we have not been told what we can use the funds for um you know so it's that's part of the waiting game as
085part as part of the state budget process and waiting for additional information on how these grants can be used thank you other questions comments or concerns are we okay then giving jamie the go-ahead to have the forums and to proceed with this absolutely mind-boggling plan that has been presented and conceived really really well so um our thanks to everybody who was a part of it um and our thanks in advance and our very sincere request for a massive amount of patience as we move forward in this um i think for those listening you've gotten a very small glimpse of all of the work that goes in behind this um and so um there's just so much more than meets the eye and the health and the well-being of our children is number one here and
086that's what we're trying to do so even when it feels terrible in your own home we are getting feedback that's very different uh you know sort of across the spectrum of feelings and experiences and emotions um and the bottom line for us in addition to wanting to respond to all of that and honor all of it is that we have to follow these guidelines and a lot of the emails that i get have some version of why don't you just stand up to the governor you know do what you want to do do and we simply cannot do that we are we hold the district sacred and it is our responsibility to be stewards of the district and so we can't do those sorts of things even though in our fantasy lives there are many
087things we would like to do but we don't have that choice as a district and so we beg you to be patient in this very very challenging journey that we have ahead of us we are truly trying to be in it all together and that is that guarantees our success so thank you thank you so much jamie and everyone on the team that has contributed to all of this um michelle sorry one more thing is for those of you who have sent in messages to talk to the board just so you know all of the board members we we see those we read every single one of those we take your your input and your feedback very seriously um jamie and jeannie as her role as president of the school board are the ones that
088are charged with responding but we just want to know that your voices are being heard thank you good reminder jamie do you need anything else from us on this john i'm sorry just a quick question jamie is there any with a survey are there any uh scenarios where you say we couldn't do it for example a number of parents say they want to go back five days a week and a large number say they can't take their kids in five days a week is there a scenario where we it's just physically impossible for this district to go back for five days if numbers play out a certain way yeah the difficulty will be if a lot of people change their um their instructional delivery model it's going to create a complete rebuild of our master
089schedule and it will cause a lot of students to have to change teachers um and so that will be that we might have to come back to the drawing table and say hey you know this is this many people this is where we are now and this is the disruption that it would create in what you're accustomed to and we may need to revisit and say is it worth continuing as a community do we want to continue and have that conversation as a board as well but that would that would be it from what i can tell some districts have already sent those surveys john and thus far the feedback is high 90 percent of folks stay with the same delivery model like 97 98 are staying with the same delivery model to finish the
090year so if that were the case i would think we'd be fine to me to prepare for that shift so i think what i'm hearing is we'll do the forums tomorrow we'll do the survey on wednesday and we will then begin plan planning for a full reopening between april 19th and may 17th so long as we can get the department of health endorsement for it yes okay and i would just one more piece i do want to thank you know we see all of you on here uh the board you you've you've really been supportive and a great sounding board day in and day out and i appreciate that uh comment we see matt and brian and deb um i don't even know how i could get through this last year without those four they
091are phenomenal uh and i trusted them implicitly and you what you um probably don't see is daily they're running and trying to plan for things like what you saw here tonight and and coordinating and having conversations and working with teams uh and their help is just so so fantastic our entire leadership team um you know we keep throwing bits of curveballs and we joke about it but it's it's exhausting it's emotionally draining to change and to change gears over and over again and try to be responsive to we don't even know what sometimes um and then our staff our students and our parents and community you know i couldn't imagine being in a more supportive wonderful place so thank you goes out to everybody i hope the end is in sight and i hope normal
092can return as soon as possible i'll quote mike przanowski when i met with him earlier if he's our cta member we just all want to get back to normal we just all want to get back to normal thank you jamie uh let's see carlin how are you tonight hi so there's nothing really new with um the difference with like sports activities in school life um but there has been a lot of talk about the opening reopening a lot of the questions that were brought to me were already addressed but there is still some questions about whether reopening the younger schools would be like regarding reopening if it would be different for the younger schools compared to like the high school middle school because there's again that just the disruption is what's really bothering people and
093i know i've we did kind of a mock survey in one of my classes just last week and a majority of the students that i had talked to it was really the younger kids that wanted to go back and the older kids were like i'm already struggling enough as it is if i go with this huge change and have all this stuff they know that it's going to be a lot harder for them towards the end of the year there's also the concern that if this were to happen all the things that we've been able to get like our extracurricular sports and extra choirs and things like that and the sound or being able to have a ball because i know that's on the maps and a prom as well if we reopen something happens
094some kind of spike happens would all those things be canceled and a lot of people are asking you know with this short amount of time left and when and if this could happen is it even worth doing it for that amount of time so there's a lot of questions from the students too and a lot of them are like hey could we have a survey too just to so people could hear our voice as well and you know i was like that would be an actually a pretty good idea and you know i'm i'm pretty sure we're not going to have a bunch of primary elementary students filling out surveys about this but you know it would be worth hearing at least the middle school and high schoolers voice on this because there is a
095lot of frustration um within the students too about how they feel that they might succeed with this type of plan and i know a lot of people are fearing that you know i'm already struggling to like pass my classes as it is and with this type of change i think it may not work so it is i think it may be worth hearing from the students too not just the staff and the parents because you know parents are going to have a different idea from the kids but it's worth hearing from them because it's affecting them too so yeah other than that there's nothing really new though that's all huh carlin thank you you actually you said it perfectly you actually i hope we still have a lot of people watching right now because what
096you said is exactly what we're dealing with we have people that feel total opposite ends of their beliefs on this you know some people really want to be back and some really don't i actually zoomed in with some classes um some of our government classes and things like that and they've been doing some unofficial surveys for me you know almost it kind of goes with the tenor of the room and so if someone's really outspoken say yeah let's get us back the whole room is for it and if somebody um is not for it like some of the cherry groups today were not for it um it kind of goes with that and i think i will also say that i've looked at uh some other districts have done surveys of parents and staff and
097and uh students about returning and it's been really divided you know almost 50 percent to you know that 40 to 60 percent range it's been really divided and ultimately i think what it boils down to and i'm just going to say it for me i think based on the rules we have to play play by um we need to create what makes the most sense for an instructional model and and try to and try to make it work by all means if it's the if it's the will of the board to survey students staff and parents about whether they even want to reopen we will do that um very few districts are doing that now they're just saying look we you know we're responding to the guidelines and trying to develop something and go um
098i know my three kids would say don't bring us back um and here i am as a dad and the superintendent doing you know you're arguing about it this weekend a little bit and uh but you know it's hard it's just difficult there's no right answer and i think michelle um said it perfectly there's there's no everybody wins scenario here right now your point's well taken though julianne um i wonder if it would be possible to hear some of that feedback maybe not as a you know what should we do but what to get more detail and allow the students to be heard about what their concerns are so that we can take those into account when planning if we are planning for what that re-entry looks like and what that adjustment looks like certainly
099our middle and high school students are capable of telling us what their concerns are and what kinds of supports they might need i know back in the summer jamie you had a forum for students right and i know attendance wasn't necessarily what we were hoping it was going to be and and maybe that's not the right format but i think carlin brings up an important point which is that especially as we think about social emotional learning and that transition frankly whether we're able to do it this spring if the guidance comes through with the way we need or in the fall there's an opportunity to hear from those students what they need and what their concerns are as they make this really difficult transition after a really difficult year milton i wonder if there's a
100role here for student government to play each class has their own government right so why not have that opportunity to put them into that mix good carl go ahead um just one quick thing about the like the class officers people who are in charge of their grades right now they're all of them are going through a re-election type thing all of them are being reelected so i would either reach out to our main student government to do that or the groups that are not redoing elections i would reach out to them because all of them are going through a big change right now so i would not advise going to some of them right now at this moment but it is an option yeah politics politics they even work their way into our student body
101these are great these are great pieces i've had i have actually had some students reach out to me unsolicited but that's great we've had great really nice dialogue i have a you know a few students that like to zoom with me often and share feedback which i always enjoy doing so these are all great ideas carl and i really appreciate you bringing this up and uh let me think about how to go about it and it might be i did get a request to attend another government class as well so it might be something along those lines you know picking up a content area and visiting those classes and hearing thoughts and concerns and recording it so we can respond to those that might be the avenue to go this is this has all been
102very helpful and people know that i'm checking my text and so i'm getting a lot of text from folks right now i'll just say that it's confirmed 78 volunteer students for intercession so that's that's great stuff that's great and that the forums uh tomorrow's forums we'll send a message to graves square where people can have the link and follow him that way megan i just had to say thank you to carlin for bringing that up because i have children in almost every school and i think her just bringing it up as a parent it puts it in my brain to maybe talk to them a little bit more before i just immediately go and answer that survey because i do want it to be an easy is not an easy transition but i want it
103to be as easy as it can be for them so it's just a good reminder for parents to maybe sit down and talk to their kids a little bit before they go answer that survey and just jump to what they want to happen because trust me i want to send mine back right away but you know i think it's good to talk to them and find out what their worries are and what their feelings are about at first so i appreciated that feedback great anyone else okay thank you very much jamie are you all set awesome okay uh let's see we have warrants up for review i'll ask cheryl and or milton for emotion please milton and cheryl questions or comments all in favor that carries unanimously deb uh we have minutes up for approval
104ask for motions please michelle and beth questions or comments all in favor that carries unanimously to deb um we have several votes all of them are roll calls so i'll ask for motions on the 2021 capital outlay project the pump replacement at the academy motions please john milton questions or comments deb whenever you're ready please burks mr johnson yes mr mrs miller yes mrs pedsick yes mrs personality yes mr palmini yes dr schneider yes this is thomas yes mrs brown yes that carries on yeah our next one is the transportation purchase bond resolution i'll ask for motions please milton and michelle questions or comments deb whenever you're ready the roll call please mrs burks yes mr johnson yes mrs miller yes mrs patzek yes mrs personality yes mr palomini yes dr schneider yes mrs thomas
105yes mrs graham yes and the final roll call is the transportation purchase resolution i'll ask for motions please cheryl and megan questions or comments whenever you're ready please step mrs burks yes mr johnson yes mrs miller yes mrs patzek yes mrs personality yes mr palamini yes dr schneider yes mrs thomas yes and mrs graham yes thank you very much dad uh let's see we have a consensus agenda and support oh i i went right past the budget res the presentation and matt you are just sitting there smiling like you think you're off the hook for the night why don't we come back to the consensus agenda supplemental and invite you to give your budget presentation oh thanks judy you're welcome mr farr uh i mean i went i apologize you should be able to share
106that if not i can do it for you all right can y'all see the presentation there yes thank you all right well good evening and um so you know obviously we've we've had a whole lot to talk about so far tonight and you know just to cap it off with the budget presentation um this is usually where we have um our our final presentation you know everything's really dialed in and then um in our first meeting in april you know we make some final adjustments and adopt the budget might be a little bit different this year um with all the changes that are happening um potentially happening with state aid and the the federal stimulus funds that are out there so i'll we'll talk through you know similar presentation that we typically do but you
107know talk through the areas also um that are still major areas that we're waiting for more information on so we'll go through the tax levy limit in history the different things that are driving the budget both positively and negatively um staffing changes and what's our current status and and what the next steps are so the tax cap uh levy um the the threshold this year is 2.07 this is the lowest um that we have had um and it's all caused by this allowable levy growth factor of 1.0 or 1.23 um so the the levy limit is the greater the lesser of two percent or the cpi and the cpi this year happens to be 1.23 which lowers our tax levy limit so our tax levy limit which is what we're going to show for this
108presentation to balance the budget is approximately 985 000 increase tax levy history the blue line is the tax cap so what the actual calculation is and the green line is the uh percentage that the district has increased the levy um in any year so you can see that every year we've been either at or below mainly um almost every year below uh heavy limit we've never exceeded it this year we don't anticipate needing to exceed that and you see the green line does not go into 2122 at this point as um you know we'll add that once we've made a formal um you know guidance to the board and adopt the budget but we don't anticipate needing to exceed it the one concern we have here and we've talked about this for the last couple
109years is you continually see this blue line trending down um and we can as long as cpi stays low as long as the consumer price index stays low we can potentially see that you know continue declining or remaining at a very low number so some of the budget challenges teachers retirement system we're seeing an increase in their um the actual rate of 0.27 percent um not a huge increase but it is an increase and and does result into some significant money the big one for us this year is the health insurance so 10 increase in health insurance and the consortium is setting that rate anticipating a loss with that 10 percent rate um and so next year when we set rates for health insurance we anticipate that number may be even higher um so this
110is a significant amount of um cost to the district and um you know a ten percent raise is much higher than what we've seen the last several years we've been in the zero to five percent range here for about four to five years now we've been uh beating trend for um you know what health insurance rates typically increase um unfortunately um the experience that our consortium is uh facing right now um is is not as good as trend and so we're seeing those higher rate increases again the tax cap of only 2.07 percent that is uh much smaller than um we traditionally see and then the other part here is on the revenue side the foundation aid and i'll talk about that here in a minute but it's currently remaining flat at 2000 1920 levels
111so the foundation aid would be the same next year as it was last year and currently this year and part of that is that there's 3.15 million dollars that of that is covered by the federal government as part of their stimulus package so just to put this in a different form foundation aid uh in 1920 you can see here was eighteen million six hundred thirty nine thousand dollars in the current year it's still eighteen million six hundred thirty nine thousand dollars but the state is only paying 18 million 100 000 of it and the other is offset by the cares act the first stimulus fund of 551 thousand dollars so that's how we're staying flat next year as it's currently standing is we would still be at a flat foundation aid but the state would
112only be paying about 15.5 million of that 18 million 639 thousand dollars and 3.15 million dollars would be federal funds this is the second stimulus fund funding which was passed in december um and so there's also the american recovery act um which is the most recent one passed as part of the 1.9 trillion dollars we're not exactly sure when we can use that how we can use it those types of things this is the big piece of our budget this year that we're waiting on both the assembly and the senate um within the state government have both said they don't agree with this reduction similar to the gap elimination adjustment of a decade ago and that foundation aids should stay flat or even increase so this you know that's a very large amount of money
113um you know that we're showing um you know as as filled by federal funds that we're not exactly sure and we won't know until april first or shortly thereafter once the state has adopted a budget where this gray number actually ends up and then right now since it's a placeholder what we're using it for and what the state has basically told us is you're using it to balance your budget um for next year if this great funding were to go up to even flat foundation aid what is that 3.15 million dollars used for um in addition um to the state aid and how long can we use it for can we use it for just next school year can we use it over a two year period or more to keep you know things relatively
114flat so some of the positives of the budget um special education costs um we're well under budget and special education for boces this year and that line is decreasing 330 000 in our budget typically we see a large increase in this area so so that's a a cost for students placed in boces programs um throughout the region um so that's a definite positive where we typically we're seeing several hundred thousand dollar increase we're seeing a decrease that really helps to balance the budget and then the other area is boces aid our boces aid increases is about 750 000 and the majority of that is because um we worked with the it department and dan bowman um this year to move our purchases for instructional technology computers um those software hardware from direct purchases with vendors
115through boces and because we purchase it through boces we get the aid on and about 60 percent aid um so every hundred dollars we spend we get about 60 dollars back so that has resulted um in about 650 000 of that 750 000 increase and so what i can show you on this next slide is you know there's two parts here these are are all the different aid categories in 2021 on the left and 21 22 on the right there's two big major changes one is the increase is caused by as we just talked about boces okay most of these are staying relatively flat there might be some minor adjustments in many of our categories um but boces eight is where we're seeing the state aid increase from year to year that 750 000 increase
116i just discussed the other area is from that previous slide this red is the federal aid that is currently you know held within for the foundation aid and this red in prior year is the cares act for the um the federal stimulus aid so while we're showing a state aid increase it's not it's due to moving that expense into boces and receiving the boces aid so staffing changes these are the same staffing changes we discussed at the last board meeting a half special education teacher um in the high school um due to needs um you know throughout the district one implementation coach in the primary elementary school which would be responsible really the main responsibilities would be due to the new math curriculum and the new science standards that are being released next year and
117formally recognizing the dean of students in the high school you'll notice there's not a number before that it'll really depend on you know when we post that and uh see who applies and gets that position as to whether that needs to be a 1.0 or 0.5 or you know a fraction of a staff member so those positions and then there's one reduction of a teaching assistant in the primary elementary school so on the revenue side um when we look at property taxes pilots and penalties an increase of 1.1 million dollars so in within that is you know there's an increase in pilots this year within that is that 2.07 percent increase the 985 000 approximately in the tax levy if we were to go out at the the levy um the the levy threshold um
118state aid you're seeing a decrease here of one million six hundred and seventy thousand dollars and that's because of that federal you know using the federal stimulus funds to to offset the foundation aid reduction and then um an increase in the federal stimulus funds of 2.6 million dollars um the difference between the cares act of 550 000 last year and this newest stimulus um the second stimulus funds of 3.15 million dollars we don't really see a project a change in our medicaid reimbursements and all other miscellaneous revenues on combined one about 81 000 increase um and a portion of that is because interest rates went down for our investing into this current year we're seeing those climb back up slightly and so we can project an increase in that area so overall an increase in
119revenues of just over 2.1 million dollars [Music] on the expense side you're seeing the majority of the increase in the program so program obviously um as we've talked in years past is anything that the students deal with it includes transportation all the teachers and the teaching staff and student materials um that's the largest increase and continues to be the largest part of our budget administration you're going to see a year-over-year increase um due to you know raises and increased cost um and then capital you see a slight decrease um those are just you know some minor adjustments within capital and capital is um you know any of our utilities um capital projects any of our debt service and anything with our facilities program so an increase of overall just just over 1.6 million dollars so
120our current budget status um where we currently are 7 79 million 330 000 budget the majority of that would be made up of the tax levy that again that number that 48 million 533 is the tax levy limit if we were to go out at the full amount all other revenue is about 29 million four hundred thousand dollars and then we would need about 1.4 million dollars in use of reserve and fund balance to balance the budget again this is lower than what we've had in the last several years currently we're right around 1.9 million dollars so it's about 500 000 reduction in reserve and fund balance if we had not moved the expenses over to boces and receive that boces aid we would expect that to be another um 000 in reserves and fund
121balance to balance his budget so it would be a very different budget um than you know than what we're currently working through right now so just an example this is not obviously the exact um reserves um that we would use at this point depending on where we where we go out the levy and where the budget finally ends where state aid comes in but an example of you know different reserves that we would use to balance the budget and some fund balance as a final balance so the next steps the really big next step for us is to wait the legislative state aid um release here hopefully you know the budget's supposed to be adopted by the state by april 1st hopefully they're on time with that um to give us some time to reflect
122on these numbers um and we need to wait on you know these details of the two federal stimulus funds that were most recently passed how can we use them when can we use them what can they be used for um once we have that information we'll be able to determine that tax living reserves and then typically we've adopted the budget at the first april meeting which would be april 5th um right after spring break um my guess is we probably won't adopt it then if the uh if the the state adopts the budget on april 1st we won't have that information until the second or even into that weekend potentially and there's going to be some major changes so i think at the april 5th meeting will most likely be a discussion about what changed
123uh maybe we'll have some ideas on the federal funds and how they can be used and have some discussion about that and then april 21st i would assume we would adopt the budget and must be adopted by the 26th this year budget hearings may 10 and the budget votes may 18th and hopefully we're doing that all in person i will stop sharing [Music] thank you matt and just as a reminder april 21st is slightly off schedule for us it's a wednesday not a monday because of the oc's vote thank you very much questions matt michelle so i know we talked about looking at our programming for additional summer programming or before school or after school programming and it i know my guess is the answer is going to be we're also waiting to find out
124what we get in for the federal dollars but do we have any um planning or incorporating that into our budget numbers so yes yes and no michelle so we've had a lot of discussions about you know what jamie had presented as far as expanding summer school programs before and after school programs we believe as part of the american recovery act the most recent stimulus funding that 20 percent of that will need be need needed to be used for programs like that for learning loss so you know summer programs before and after school programs were the areas that we would be able to we hope to be able to use that for we have increased our budget for summer programming especially for the middle school and the primary elementary school at this point um but yes
125we're still having discussions about that and that may be a major change as well you know so when we adopt that final budget the expense might be higher than what we just you know discussed as we add programming um the other part is we don't know with these federal funds if that's going to be a general fund area you know similar to the cares act it's just part of our budget or is it going to be a federal grant and it's not part of our you know our daily budget at all similar to our title one or you know those types of grants that are out there so those are areas that we need some clarity on for sure michelle great question any other questions okay thank you very much matt uh now we have
126a consensus agenda and supplemental i'll ask your emotions please jen and michelle questions or comments all in favor opposed that carries unanimously thank you and committee reports beth policy please um so i need to make a motion on behalf of the committee for policy number 2130 it is a required policy by the state general gender neutral single occupancy bathrooms as that is on behalf of the committee it does not need a second questions or comments all in favor opposed that cares unanimously thank you beth did you want anything else yeah i just wanted to take a minute and publicly thank our um julianne miller for presenting giving up part of her saturday for four county to tell new new board members um what they're getting into um i from what i hear the reviews were
127wonderful and you did a great job and thank you very much for saying yes when you got the phone call thanks beth let's see district committees cie milton please so um cie met on the 10th and we reviewed and approved a pursuing gemiini status for a health class to begin in 2022-2023 we got an update from gene mckenzie on the intervention program and we also heard a review actually we conducted a review of the summer curriculum writing proposals and those those proposals we provided feedback to a subcommittee and we expect to have those back in may to review those recommendations and finally we heard an update from dr mcfarland on professional development great thank you very much uh julianne diversity equity inclusion please sure um so the whole large committee met last week to take
128the sort of outline of a plan that the advisory group had come up with and to try to start fleshing it out as we work towards building a diversity equity and inclusion plan for the district so we divide it up into different groups um the plan or the skeleton of it as it stands now has a number of different areas that we're looking at through the lens of building our capacity around diversity equity and inclusion including teaching and learning leadership and staff policies and procedures student experience family and community involvement that might be all of them i think that's all of them and fleshing that out the advisory committee is now going to meet again next week and to start going through all of the feedback that we got from the broader group um as
129we continue to flesh out that plan and really make it as specific as we can great thank you very much uh jen colbert 19. so as you know we meet every friday it's the the way i wind down my week is to to spend some time with brian and vern and mike and this particular week we really focused on what would happen if uh we you know go back to five days a week and we load the building and had quite a conversation around additional filtration particularly for lunchrooms where we know kids will be without mass and we start to to load in that direction just some clarity so there are many places in the district that run with the equivalent to a hepa filter that's a merv 8 and that's great if you have
130a very humid day that works especially well but if you're talking about some major loading in an area like in the cafeteria you want to go to a merv 13 or a super hepa and so we had some discussions about doing that we also uh are going to do some more work around humidity the guys are getting sick of humidity um maybe some more and then finally we talked about how we can think about that kind of filtration uh process overall as as we come back kind of it's in building form how that'll work and i can't stress uh how great everybody's been putting up with me and all my science shenanigans on all of this um a quick note though to go back to an earlier conversation when we talked about reopening the buildings
131i have received multiple texts uh from kids in high school and a couple of families but multiple texts from kids in high school saying go carlin which we know and but saying that they really want a voice in this process and they want to have a way to get their their thoughts out and so far what i'm hearing is we're a little concerned about yet another disruption can we put another option in the survey to say leave as is now we don't want to come back we'd like to know how many people might be interested in that option something to think about um and i really have to say thank you to our students for standing up for for themselves and and offering input so congrats and carlin they're proud of you great thank you
132jen uh i have nothing else jamie anything else from you no i don't think so okay well i'll ask for a motion to adjourn then michelle that was fast and megan thank you very much everybody keep up the great work thanks for being with us tonight good night thanks