001hi working on the streaming part now okay is it there Deb do you think it's it's streaming it's streaming yeah thanks yeah all right I have six 30 do you Deb okay welcome everybody I will call the meeting to order 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 under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thanks for being here tonight everybody nice to see everyone um I don't have anything so Jamie I'll turn it right over to you all right I'll try to be fairly quick then uh just want to talk about two things one would be the co uh kind of yellow zone situation that uh we could find ourselves
002in just to make sure everybody kind of understands what would happen um and if you have questions about it I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have of course now I have my papers all discombobulated uh but I can go off a memory oh there it is so a couple things uh a little bit changed over the weekend in fact um the state government released new guidance on yellow zones originally it was once your school was in a yellow zone you have to uh test 20% of your staff and student population in person randomly every week uh until you were off the yellow zone and we'll just call it green zone but I don't even know if it's really called green zone I think it's just a non- Zone rating um so how
003that changed over the weekend and I don't know if this was the reason but the governor held a couple press conferences and some and in in those conferences he said multiple times that schools are not the issue where the spread is happening are um uh Gatherings like in somebody's home or uh these these weddings or things like that you know where they're not following the distancing and masking the issue isn't in the school and uh a couple reporters said well if the issue is not in the school why are you putting such restrictions on them and and shutting them down and creating all these tests it was a valid question uh and so the change is if we're designated yellow and if I'm interpreting this right because I haven't been able to really uh you
004know get have a dialogue with anybody in the know about it yet but uh what we believe would happen is we would have to test 20% of our staff and student in person over a two-e span so instead of 20 being in the first you know each week it would be 20 over a two we span and if the the infection rate over that two we span is less than a yellow zone designation which is 3.5% infection that we would no longer have to do the the pool testing and the randomized testing we could we would be removed from that so again this this came out over the weekend there has been no dialogue uh with people in the know at this point so um I'm kind of trying to connect the dots and interpret
005the release from the governor's office but that's one piece the other pieces that I want to mention is um just to be really clear with the testing for us even if it's 20% over two weeks meaning 10% per week we're still talking oh 300 to 350 tests in a week uh which is half of what we were thinking it would be our nurses don't they don't have the capacity to do that and so we need to look at other options uh Brian has talked with Folks at Thompson Hospital uh to see if we can partner with them uh I've been in Communications uh with FLC and some of their nursing students and we've had a few already reach out and say they'd be happy to help us and we actually have a um a subn
006nurse who's reached out multiple times saying wherever we need her whatever you know needs to happen she wants to help with with testing if we're designated yellow if we're looking at our projections of infection rates in Ontario County it certainly looks like we're heading down the path of that 3.5 rolling infection rate in fact we're significantly above that right now in Ontario County the difficult piece is we don't know if that would mean canadu was in a yellow zone because it's really Broken Out by infection hotpots which is centered around zip codes and so if for example the majority in of the infections are in Victor it may not put canadea in the yellow zone or if it's in Geneva it may not put canadea in the yellow zone and we don't really have that
007data I've been attending the the county leadership meetings and I'll give you an example one day um there were 27 new cases I think this was on Thursday six of which were from canadaa the rest were from other communities within uh Ontario County so we'll just have to keep a close eye on that but we are talking with other providers that we would contract with to come in to do these tests the tests are not they are the nasal swap but they're shallow and so if you think about a Q-tip uh the cotton part of the Q-tip is basically all that goes inside each you know each each nostril they do five circles in each nostril and then put it in this slip of paper and we would have a result in 15 minutes and
008so what we have to do is actually do the tests and have the results and submit those to the um Department of Health in Ontario County and in the state portal every Friday we have to submit those if we're designated yellow uh and so they're it's not the the really deep nasal one that people have have maybe watched a video of or perhaps even had um and in fact tomorrow I have uh Christy Richards from the Department of Health coming she and myself Emily badana and we have four students two kindergarten and two first grade students and we're gonna we're going to create a video and actually be tested and um and then we're going to share that with all the staff and the families to show them you know what what a test looks
009like and uh and that it isn't that scary so we'll have them do the test we'll have a little skit and then um we'll ask them after you know how was it did it hurt how did it feel and just kind of get their feedback and so we think it'll be uh interesting in fact Dr NY at flcc asked after we do it will we share it with him because he'd like to use it at flcc too so it'll be fun we're going to have a good time with it um so there's that piece we're looking at a variety of things nothing's really solidified yet but we we need to need to be prepared for this so that um if for example this week we were designated the yellow zone we need to be up
010and running by Monday of next week conceptually the way I would like to see it happen is if if next week we had to be up and running with the testing protocol I would like to do a random draw Monday morning I would like to notify all students and staff that were drawn by Monday afternoon that the Cherry kids would be tested on Tuesday the gray would be tested on Thursday so that you know if parents had questions they could ask us questions I would also like to and this is kind of wishful thinking here um also offer maybe a Monday evening uh drive-thru testing protocol for anybody who is drawn um because maybe a child would be more comfortable having their parent there with them maybe we could set something up at the primary
011Elementary School lot they could drive through we could test them and now they're not being pulled out of class teachers could even do that or staff if they're drawn um we need to work on all of that level of detail but those are just things we're thinking that would make it more convenient and less disruptive if we need to go down that road um but a lot of planning is still happening if somebody said I don't want to be tested and this is Staff or students um that's fine and they can refuse testing uh and still come to school the issue will be if we can't reach that 20% Mark whether that's over two weeks or one week you know let's just it doesn't really matter as long as we can meet that 20% of
012new people being tested Mark we're fine we can continue to operate if we can't meet that Mark we have to go remote completely so let's just say we had to test over the course of a month and we'll use the premise that I said 20% over the course of two weeks so over a month we have to test 40% of our our folks if we only have 30% willing to do so after week two we would have to shut down because we don't have a new 20% to randomly test and um that's been a little bit confusing for people but that is our interpretation and our understanding of it at this time if I saidou know what I don't want to do this rapid test but I'm going to go to my doctor and do
013it because my name was drawn this week we could do that so anybody would have the option of saying I want to go to a different testing site and be tested but they have to submit to us proof that they were tested and the results by Friday so we can submit it I don't think a lot of people will be going that route um but it was a provision that we saw in there and we wanted to be clear and and truthful about that certainly um and really that's about it it's just kind of a lot of preparation we had a zoom meeting last week with the four uh Yates senica Wayne and Ontario County director of Public Health and all the superintendents trying to be on the same page so what we hope to
014do is create this video that we film tomorrow edit it and then send it out to uh staff and parents with a permission slip that they would sign to give us permission uh to randomly draw their their students name or their child's name uh for the testing so again a lot to do a lot to plan and prepare for but uh we're getting there and we're almost we're almost ready Brian Nolan anything to add to that or anybody else no uh any questions about yellow zones Milton So Jamie you mentioned that if I didn't want to be tested at the school I could go to my primary care provider are we confident that the primary care providers are on the same page just as a you know kind of a because I have I've had
015I think very little I don't know what I would say a very little uh interaction with them but what I have um I understand that they're not testing anybody who's asymptomatic at all whether the governor is requiring it or not you're exactly right Primary Care Providers are not testing unless you have a symptom but we are aware of maybe three or four sites that are testing asymptomatic and so we would hope to have that conversation with the family or the staff member who says I want to go to my own place to be tested we can let them know that just so you know without symptoms your your doctor won't test you um we've actually had conversations with various doctors specific to that and they've confirmed that but we we found I believe four fairly
016local and when I say fairly local it could be you know 30 minute drive up to a 20 to 30 minute drive that will test without symptoms but there are not many anybody else so uh the only other thing I had was just kind of a kudos to our staff uh they continue to think out of the box and and find creative ways to um encourage kids to participate and bring a a bit of a sense of normaly and I just wanted to mention a couple uh thinking about this proposal you'll see on the the agenda tonight for a k k kids club at the elementary school which is a quanis uh related Club you know when we're in times like this for people to be thinking about expanding opportunities I just it warms my
017heart because um you know kids need this stuff more now than ever certainly that sense of normaly that connectedness that sense of community and so really proud of the staff at the elementary school that are working towards bringing in more clubs and more activities uh and so that'll be a great thing and and really specific around service and Leadership uh which they're never too young to learn about that uh a couple other things I was uh able to attend one of the rehearsals for theater and um and so they are doing a fall show but it's it looks a bit different uh they are doing it in small groups and they're filming it and they're going to piece it all together uh to release a a movie We're not really sure how that movie will
018be released yet we've talked about different drive-in movie Concepts where um you know people could park their cars and watch it or maybe we release it on YouTube like we did uh for Mama Mia in the spring but really looking at different options there uh but couple Friday nights ago they were filming and um it was at a local Cemetery at dusk into the into the dark and I pulled in there and it the kids were so you could tell they were just in their element in fact in the fact that they were they were doing what they loved they were they were doing theater and yes it was creepy uh and a bit scary uh but you know they were just they were so happy to be together it was so clear and they
019were so appropriate I mean when they weren't filming their masks were on they were they were giving each other dist distance which you would expect from that group but it's been really fun to watch I'm sure the filming will take place over the next couple weeks uh I can't wait for the release uh so be on the lookout for that in the last thing I I know on my notes I wrote it down as mural club and it's not that it was actually art night at the primary Elementary School not sure if you caught any of this but uh some of our art teachers coordinated what they called an art night and they they put it out for families any student that was willing to or interested in and has a love for art they
020offered a one-hour session tonight and so what happened was you had some of our older students that are highly proficient with art that were um co-teachers and we had over40 uh Primary Elementary School students attend this Zoom I heard there were some Zoom issues with the breakout rooms but essentially they they broke off and they worked on art projects with the older students leading the younger students through an art project and uh what a great thing they're doing this every month for just another opportunity for kids to be involved in something outside of the classroom and we see these are just three pieces of evidence of things that are happening there are so many more but I just want to highlight a few just to give you a glimpse of what our staff they're doing
021on top of everything else that this pandemic is serving them they're still trying to find way ways to to offer things to kids so I just wanted to point it out that was awesome thank you for sharing that my pleasure uh anything else from you Jamie no okay uh Carlin you are up all right so the high school has just just just recently did a um senior drive-in movie night and that went very well we had a lot of people show up to that and um as he brought up the play that's an option that they consider the drive-in thing because they just did it and it was really successful um we also just did a for the Halloween they did um a usually there's the walk the Pumpkin Walk near the racetrack but they
022did a driveby version of it and they did that um right on Chapel Street kind of leading up to the high school and a lot of people came to that as well um for the students we um we're doing a can drive this week we're donating food for Thanksgiving this month and that's what we're doing for stuff like that and hoping to get a lot of donations from the students uh there's been a lot of complaints lately about um in the past few weeks about teachers not putting out due dates and stuff but there's been a major Improvement in the last like week and a half a lot of teachers have been putting out like calendars and um making sure all of their resources are available on their Pages which has been great and for
023the students so there's not a lot of complaints from anybody on that aspect because there's been like a lot of new stuff that's been coming which has been great um we're doing a spirit week coming up after Thanksgiving they're not quite sure what they're going to do for the days yet but they have that planned I know the NS yeah the national NHS they finished going through the applications not too long ago um I haven't heard anything about the inductions yet I know it's going to be a little bit later than it normally is um along kind of like the play how they're doing the film thing they're still doing that with the prism concert um I know a few groups are close to recording and getting that ready I'm not sure how they're going
024to put that out to the school yet how they're where they're going to put it but I know that they're still planning on doing that and it's still going well um but other than that the students have been in a pretty good mood it's been a little weird because of the holidays just because everyone's ready for a break even though we're not really in school most of the time but um there's been a lot more activity with the students between teachers and Communications which has been awesome to see so overall students are doing pretty well great thank you very much okay let's see we have minutes up for approval I'll ask for motions please Beth and Cheryl question or comments all in favor opposed that carries unanimously Deb and Warren John and or Jen I'll
025move them I have no problems with them John's first Jen second second okay questions or comments all in favor opposed that carries unanimously to Deb thank you and Matt good evening one tonight's educational presentation is focused on all things Tech integration as you might expect given our current circumstances uh the crew of people here tonight have been supporting our district T tremendously um and really leave no stone unturned in trying to make sure that our staff have everything that they need our administrative team is being supported um with Logistics and and resources and things of that nature so um we wanted to give you a little bit of update of where things currently stand but uh we also want to give you kind of a look back as well well how do we get to
026this point and I don't think in the 2015 2016 school year when um the district moved to having one to one devices that we would ever imagine that would be in the current situation where we're at but it's because of that work that we are feeling very confident and successful of the progress that we've made uh to this point in order to support a a learning environment that is both a combination of iners and or virtual in a lot of respects so I'm going to turn things over to Dan Bowman who's our director of Technology but we're also Al joined by our three Tech integrators Steve Holmes at the primary Elementary School Brian Crawford at the middle school and Mr Keith pedik at the Academy so thanks gentlemen for joining us this evening and and
027we'll take it away thank you Matt um Keith are you putting up the okay thank you all um I'm GNA start off talking a little bit about like the history of how we got to where we are and I just want to start off by reiterating what Matt said thank goodness we started this five years ago um there's several school districts around here that are um in a spot that uh I would not want to be in as a district um trying to pull off virtual learning and hybrid learning uh without being a onetoone school um that that would be a tremendous challenge so it it was it was uh just it was very good that we uh started when we did um not knowing uh slide two please so you can see that this
028is sort of the layout um many of you have seen this um in multiple presentations throughout the past but it's been a little updated here about 5 years ago we started our schooo G and G Suite roll out um brought on Steve Holmes as a a part-time Tech integrator at the time this was before we went to one: one we had a lot of devices um in students hands but we weren't really assigning those to students but we knew we were going to and that was our plan for the next three years to roll those out and we put in some of those absolutely necessary cloud services that um you know we heavily rely on and we tried to get some training going on that the following year we added the middle school as being
029our first one toone um building uh rolling Chromebooks out to all those students and then also adding another tech integrator Caroline Chapman at the time um for the Middle School support for that first year um at the same time we were putting out the high school teachers so that they had an experience with Chromebooks at that point so that the following year we went one to one in the high school and at that time we added our third Tech integrator Keith Pedic um at the Academy um and then the following year we went to the uh Primary Elementary School to complete our onetoone solution so it took you know three four years for us to get there um and then lo and behold the following year uh we put it all to really good use
030um with the pandemic um Brian Crawford came on uh last year uh as our Tech integrator for the middle school and um we we Keith pedik and uh Steve Holmes were staying um as the tech integrators so the global pandemic really changed things quite a bit and had all kinds of brand new uh sort of uh challenges um yeah you can advance the slide so with this you can see some of these challenges that I've sort of listed um you know technical support I I talked about that in my opening statement uh at the beginning of the year to the board you know since then we've actually been able to adjust um a couple of people's roles so that um they were able to jump on to they were techsavvy staff members that were able
031to jump on and do some of our um tech support some of the the lower level needs um but there's lots of them so they're learning every day they're really enjoying uh learning new new aspects of their job and they've really been helping out quite a bit uh with that we've been able to add a virtual help desk at the Academy you can see it down there at the lower right it's the old Hawkin entrance so there is somebody there every single day at that desk where people can just walk up right to um and right to the help desk and actually be have service right there um for all of the virtual Learners um so they don't have to enter the building and all the hybrid students when they're remote on the days on
032the days that they're remote um so they don't have to like go up to the help desk at the Academy or schedule another day or something like that they can get instant uh support um another problem that uh was perceived at the beginning was you know the speed of the devices for the first couple of months we were struggling with our Chromebooks and you know people were questioning whether the Chromebooks really the right device because they weren't performing well we knew that you know there was backend problems with the filtering and that's really what most of those problems really were the filtering is mandated by law we couldn't take it off and just make things go faster we had to fix it and it took several Renditions of fixing it um to really get that
033the new method is really taking we have a lot more servers uh servicing that and then also we're taking all of a big list of all of the educational sites such as schoy Zoom seesaw you name it it's in the list and they just bypass that filter so they're not actually getting filtered but they are because it's a specific list and therefore it's speeding things up tremendously for us and since then you know we really have seen all the Chromebooks that were purchased in the last three years and we have a three-year replacement cycle have proven to be quite adequate for all the software packages that we're using either remotely or virtually um and you know I continue to believe that you know they are the the best device for our District they're stable secure
034cost effective that really has not changed um another a problem that we sort of saw at the beginning was you know families had concerns about our youngest students safely transporting the devices back and forth to school um that's never happened before we all had them in carts and they used them in school and that was it um now they're using them at home and they had to transport them during hybrid days um so for those youngest students we actually took the the devices that would have been um either recycled or sold off uh that were four years old or more and we utilize those in the carts for K through two at this point um and now those students don't have to transport the devices back and forth they have one in each place um
035so that's been a very great help um internet access at home um we thought that there was actually going to be more demand than there actually was we're at about we're at 65 hot spots right now that's being um most of those are utilized at this point but we do have the option to add more through our Bosey service um they have some in stock so we're not nervous about that but our the number of devices was not as bad as we thought originally anticipated um there was lots of new software that we needed specifically for the pandemic because we've never really done remote learning so Zo Zoom was definitely a necessity we brought on Brave Square heavily at the end of the last year for communication this year we're doing scheduling a virtual parent
036conferences we've distributed report cards through that that's been essential um I I mentioned before the the dismissal manager uh application that we adopted that's helped out the primary elementary school and just recently we haven't even announced it to staff yet but you know we're looking at things that you know as Tech rators and um the technology staff gaps in those in the software or needs of the teachers and one of the things that we see is you know the ease of you know recording a lesson on your Chromebook um we have lots of tools that can do that like Zoom can do it you can record but it goes into the zoom Cloud you got to take it from the zoom cloud and put it in you know bring it down to Google then share
037it um there's a bunch of steps there so we're we're going um we're going to purchase a a software we have already purchased a software and we're going to implement that in the next week or so screencastify it's like one click you record your lesson and it automatically goes into Google and there's you know you can share it right into your uh schoy lesson so you know those are the things that we're trying to do is is really look to see what the needs of the teachers are and um and really adapt to those uh some some software packages are being dropped and then some we're going to uh bring online uh to fill those gaps and that's really you know all of our software there's a huge Reliance much more um much more of
038a Reliance on our software and our Hardware than we ever have to support this hybrid and virtual learning um which is you know it's a strain on the teachers um to learn all these new methods of teaching so quickly um but the thing is they've been doing an amazing job at it uh and and really you know the reason for that is the the tech integrators the three people you're going to hear from tonight um you know I love meeting every every single week we have a a meeting and they are the most professional enthusiastic and hardworking people in this District um they have taken on huge burden on their shoulders this year um not that their job was easier easy before but you know this year really put a strain um on the need
039for this and so it's my great pleasure to uh kick it off to them and they'll continue on with the presentation thank you Dan uh I'm Steve Holmes and I'm gonna start off I'm gonna talk about a couple of slides um before I talk about uh this slide and by the way one thing that's not on here is screencastify and that is an awesome product teachers are really going going to like using that I just wanted to um you know sort of uh uh piggyback on top of that history that Dan was talking about I um you know way back a while ago Michelle Reynolds did some stuff uh that might be considered to be Tech integration um but it was almost like too early if it were possible to be that way it just
040you know they just wasn't a lot of Technology around at that time um and so when when she went back into the classroom I was going to the the former um head director of Technology Kevin MN I was like uh I worked on him for five years saying I think we need um we need something for teachers because people were starting to use other uh Tech tools and um right the the way it was was the tech department was actually trying to teach people these Tech tools and you know they have plenty of stuff to do and I thought maybe this is where something where I could step in and and do something like that um and then uh it turns out that um ly erle and uh by that time uh Dan Bowman uh
041agreed and I was happy to be able to do but also the other person I want to mention that was a big part of this was Katie McFarland she actually is the uh in addition to being the director of the cacc and director of professional learning she's also the director of instructional technology and if I if I think about who my my direct bosses are would be Dan and Katie and they're the ones that are at uh our Tech integrator meetings they're the ones that uh um just sort of lead us in the direction that we need to be going to so uh Katie's not here tonight but I did want to make sure that she got mentioned because uh I've learned a whole lot from her for sure so these are just some of
042the tech tools that we um we actually teach to people um I had today I just had somebody ask me um how can I edit a video that I created in zoom and the answer to that question is we video um and so I'm G to be doing some training tomorrow with a teacher at the PES about we video so this is the kind of of of uh stuff that we do sometimes we teach it all together in a class sometimes we teach it one on-one sometimes we teach it via Zoom so and this is I I don't want to say it's a small part but these are the big key ones that we use you and I'm sure that you recognize some of these next slide please um I I'm proud to say I'm
043proud to be part of this team actually I am really think that we do a great job Tech integrators have been a big part of several major District accomplishments um we have done uh a whole lot of professional development professional learning uh whether it's um um in when we had onetoone trainings uh a few years ago for a couple years or um during the pandemic uh the beginning of the pandemic last year we did Zoom trainings uh uh I was on Zoom just about every day showing people how to do things we do conference day trainings as well we also are always trying to uh update our skills we meet with uh uh Regional other uh Regional technology integrators we actually created um this group of people and we're actually meeting with this group again
044soon via Zoom it's just good to hear what some other schools and other uh people do in their um uh buildings in their districts and and see if we can each help each other um we um certainly go to conferences like nice gate and uh other personal learning uh conferences um I'm very proud of the work that we've done in 3dpd and 3D you're going to hear more about that from Keith Pedic um but that's some really good work that was done and um that's you know this and more you know just the the daytoday I don't know how to do this can you help me um I definitely think it is a benefit to um teachers in the district and uh I also once again want to say how proud PR I am to
045be part of the team and that team includes Mr Keith pedik take it away thanks Steve uh now that we've kind of had an overview of some accomplishments and the history behind this role um we're going to start to talk about how we've aligned our work to the district strategic plan and the goals of that plan um uh to help kind of shape the work that we're doing uh to make sure it's focused um so one of the goals of the district is to enhance the organizational system systems and practices to improve teaching and learning and I think this is one of the really core aspects of what we do on a day-to-day basis um helping teachers um use technology effectively to enhance learning um so this comes through uh response to help desk tickets
046um a variety of text supports from videos on how to use tools um and one-on-one coaching sessions uh where we're helping teachers uh achieve the objectives of lessons um to blend um best practices and um best technology practices uh one of the other goals of the district is to cultivate an equitable and inclusive School environment and the work that we've done here is is I think something that to to really be proud of um one of the one of the elements is um the work that we've done since the spring and through the school year now um working on uh schooly design training and instructional support and our goal here is really to help teachers um all of us um with our LMS trying to make courses look the same so that everybody through every
047student throughout the district is having the same kind of experience in schooly in the way that they're getting content the way that they're being given assignments and the way that they're submitting them and the other piece um that we've done towards this goal is the asynchronous PD experience we gave last spring um 3D where we familiarized the district um faculty with the cultur responsive uh document from um the State Department of Education and um teachers read that and then engaged in online learning so we were trying to model some best asynchronous uh practices um with that um and so now going to turn things over to Brian Crawford who's going to take us home thanks Keith uh yes so moving forward with the Strategic plan we as a tech integration team are always looking for
048new ways to expand opportunities for everyone in the district uh and through our work with technology and instruction we're providing a lot of real world College and Career ready skills we do a lot of work with Google's G suite for staff and students so that they can all have skills that can transfer beyond the walls of our buildings we offer a lot of device trainings on things like Chromebooks and iPads for students and teachers K12 we've been delivering these onetoone trainings on all the district supported software for years and we we're also starting to Branch out into best practices and how to use that software in your Blended learning or asynchronous learning environments and we've even decided to you know kind of position ourselves as resources to parents and Guardians in the community and so
049as a result we we've been attending open houses for the past few years making sure that we're available to to anyone who needs our help so as we move forward we're not expecting our work to end here we we we're not you know resting on our Laurels at all we're really hoping to continue moving forward and attaining more goals uh and some of those big ones are developing more efficient strategies for teaching and learning through technology uh and we want to keep helping schools uh in the district work towards goals that are focused on technology and use District committees like the professional development committee and District technology committee uh to work towards those goals and support those goals um because really in the end we want to make sure that we're facilitating some core shifts
050in teaching and learning we don't we don't want our our our staff and our students to just be digital citizens but we want them to transfer over and be digital leaders and we don't want them to just settle for consuming the information that's available but we want them to create information and contribute to the learning of other people in our district and around the world and so just to wrap up I want to say on behalf of Dan and Katie and all the tech integrators thank you so much for letting us uh swing by and and give you an idea of some of the work that we're doing and that we're hoping to do uh and now we'll shift it back to you and hopefully we can answer any questions that you might have great
051thank you so much especially for all of your enthusiasm around the great work that you do that was a really engaging presentation um how about questions from the board or comments Jen thank you uh for great presentation um I'm curious uh is there such a thing as an average kind of tech help or Tech call or where you spend most of your time or anything like that uh our jobs would be a lot easier if there was but um no I I I wouldn't say it was an average Tech call um I would say that you know usually when there there's issues there's usually a a rash of of the same issue you know everybody uses the same software and has the same needs in that software and so when they get asked to do
052something or they're expecting it to work a certain way and it doesn't then you know we get a lot of requests that are the same so usually those it it starts off where you know at one Tech is working or one Tech integrator is helping someone and then you know we see that oh wait a minute now there's another one oh you're you're working on the same problem Oh wait okay so now you know we start to pull that together add our resources to it and you know really solve the problem as a whole um that happens a lot um and then also on the tech integrator side that the same type of thing happens where you know we'll hear this teacher needs this this teacher oh wait a minute you had that same request
053well maybe we should create a training on that um and that's where you know it sort of flows to a little higher level there but you know every problem is usually different sorry other questions or comments John is there a location where the a staff member could find out what software is available for them to use um I'm thinking for example we use I use the Adobe package um converting PDFs over things like that um we have a we have a substantial um resource area in schooly it's one of the areas where we develop our training materials any videos or any kind of support materials are in our it support course and that's both the the kind of IT Tech side and then also the the educational integration side so all of that all that
054information is there so it'll tell you what programs a staff member can access yes there yeah there's a list in that it support area in schoolagy of all of the programs that we support now I know and um as I was at did some work at the college for a while I know Milton knows there's certain programs that they provide to their staff to use um such as the Adobe package uh or they allow them to be able to go on I think it's called on the Hub to get software programs they can buy for their use U at home or at school do we offer anything along those lines we have offered those um over the years but uh both Adobe and Microsoft in the last I'd say the last two years they've really
055caught back on the ability to purchase um sort of the the staff and student buyin program we had on the Hub we had it working but they actually took the the um licensing that part of the licensing agreement away from us um so we can't offer that anymore um Adobe and Microsoft we both we had those for many years and they're both gone anybody else Milton in terms of durability you you you mentioned the speed elements and you've resolved some of those challenges has the have the Chromebooks had any durability issues and I know some iPads were being used down at the lower lower schools are there issues regarding how well they're up they're um sort of living out those three years it depends on the student some some of the uh sometimes the devices
056come back to us like they were absolutely brand new and I mean even for students that were actually using them on a daily basis it's unbelievable how good they took care of them um and then there's the flip side of that where there are no hinges even left there's plastic broken in every which way possible they've had three screens broken throughout those three years um so the answer to your question is is sort of difficult to gauge um on iPad side of things we have put big thick rubber pads or you know cases around those iPads um which has really helped with the lower grades um we don't have um that many break breakages of those and I think you know also it's only in kindergarten and I think the parents are sort of right
057there with them and teachers are right there with them and um so that hasn't been that much of an issue Chromebooks is all over the board we have seen from model to model because obviously we're like five years in into this now so from model to model we have seen some issues where you know the original Dell Chromebooks we had had really weak hinges um and that was a problem they kept breaking even if kids were semi careful but the new Lenovo ones um we've been through three generations of those and every year they keep getting better U more rugged um they're not really increasing the cost at all but they are getting better because obviously they see the issues the engineering works on on them and um makes you know perfects those hinges a
058little bit better and Stu so yeah it's been good um the last model year that we have uh the latest Lenovo we actually bought it it was interesting they they they gave us a discount on the on the Chromebooks if we would put the cases that they supplied for free on them which I thought was very interesting so because because we bought the warranty um on a break fix warranty which we usually do on our Chromebooks to get us by that three years um they they wanted to cut their cost so they gave us really nice uh cases so that they would have less breaks and then have less uh you know charges on their insurance so it was a win-win great I'm sure that'll continue anybody else okay thank you so much for a
059great presentation that reflects a great body of work of course so we really appreciate everything you're doing thanks for being with us good night thank you okay that was that was really awesome wow it's a lot of work going on a lot of really good work uh let's see we have a consensus agenda I'll ask for motions please Milton and Julianne questions or comments all in favor opposed that carries unanimously Deb uh Michelle will you report out on audit finances fund please well I will but I will say it's not very fun these days um although we are making the best of it at our happy committee so we reviewed the claims auditor report Lori Dulan was present and reported that there wasn't any um any issues um as Jamie shared in his Communicator we
060did talk about state aid reductions and really Rel lack of lack of information being released by the state I guess that's probably not a terrible surprise um I'm I'm looking at my notes as I look this way um nice had also stated that because students were not being transported to and from school from March 18th to June 30th we're not going to get Transportation Aid during the this time so that that is definitely a hit so obviously Matt and his team are keeping close tabs on that um the good news is we did re um do some uh bond refunding which is going to save us a little under $200,000 over the next seven years so we'll take all the money we can get that is for sure we also took um finally got back
061our stack audit report and correct me if if I'm wrong but that audit really looks at our request for reimbursement for providing servic services to special ed students and there were no material findings it was virtually a clean audit so um that was great news and that's a lot of work for our special programs area so major props to them um tax collection rates were actually a little bit ahead of where we've been in the past which is really interesting in light of the current time we um collected through November 6th about 91.8 7% of our total Levy so that was great news and then finally um Matt has the the honor of starting to look at tax cap calculations and the CPI for all Urban consumers um that is right now set at about
0621.23% that will have a material impact at our on our tax cap um which is expected to be low which is not always great news so um I think I got everything Matt anything you would add I think you got everything thank you Michelle you got it that's it thank you everybody thank you Michelle uh let's see John site please all right I can do site and um health and safety at the same time pretty much they're they're close the um the health and safety meeting there was um I think Verns finally found his his home he is I don't know he must like never I'm not gonna start anyhow he uh he love he he's loves doing these meetings but we talked about there was a request about air fresheners uh he's done his
063um research found that air fresheners are not permitted U they are not allowed in the district you can use a um air purification machine with the HEPA filter in your room um he warned that many of those machines aren't qualified to clean a room the size of our classrooms but um as far as the use of air fresheners indoor perfumes or Aroma therapies District does not allow these um you are not to do any chemicals that could mask um a bad odor the question of personal hygiene issues in the classroom came up and he says it doesn't regardless of what the source of the smell is um you're not allowed to do anything to mask that smell and then the flip of that again air purification systems are allowed in a room the state has
064not approved an ion purification system yet he says um therapy dogs are not allowed there is a difference between that in a service dog or service dogs are allowed therapy dogs are not by um montario County Public Health rules obviously state of New York rules they did get a supply of child-size masks which have been distributed to the primary and elementary schools that was the biggie there was some discussion about filter Replacements um mask wearing reminders um clarifications on cleaning of desks by teachers custodians then they talked about some C CPR certifications that are needed for some of the team members and he is arranging for that health and safety met I'm sorry site committee met at 5 o'clock today just before this meeting Brian went over the window project which will be starting Brian
065help where's Brian on there Brian when did you say was it um December 21st okay well I'm this he's over here for this Michelle you're right next to I don't know how the screens are all arranged but um so December 21st just said they're going to start on that and four classrooms will be displaced at a time two hours at a time approximately y yeah yeah and it they should be able to get all the windows all the windows repaired or replaced um within that $100,000 project we talked further about the major project that we're undergoing right now now um we for a while we told that we were not going to get the hallway um designs that we had talked about due to budgetary issues now we're finding out that is going to be
066possible so those of you that remember what we looked at initially with the red and gray and white uh tiles and hallways that is now back on in addition they're looking at a strip to gold on the top of the what is currently the structural block where the teachers can then add um classro classroom work that type of stuff uh to that strip without having to apply tape to the walls Brian did provide us with a timetable but it was so small I couldn't read it so we sending that to us I'm sure we'll we'll I'll get a copy a chance to see that um what else was there Brian between those two meetings uh we talked about the uh the the central receiving project we're going back out to bid on that and then
067a quick discussion around the emergency Squad and that is that turns out to be a non-issue for the district for the most part great thank you John uh let's see Beth policy please so we have three policies um I think gen tell me if this is okay I can make a motion on behalf of the committee to eliminate the first reading for policy 5080 it's about code of ethics for district Personnel um I believe everyone got a little memo about that um so if I could make a motion to eliminate that first me first reading and just to be safe I'm going to take a second on it because it's not actually on a policy so thank you Megan so Megan is the second Deb um so in order to have this pass and have
068this be a second reading and bypass the first reading we need a super majority so I'll ask for motions all in favor oppos that passes unanimously Deb thank you thanks Beth perfect so so now we can now you can take the vote on it yes so having had that though can't I make a motion then on behalf of the committee to accept the second reading for that policy 5080 plus 3190 and 3195 yeah Deb is that okay with you to take them all together or do you want them separately okay yes you can so that's on behalf of the committee we don't need a second questions or comments all in favor opposed there that carries unanimously too thanks Beth that's it thanks everybody thank you and Julianne diversity equity and inclusion inclusion please um we
069had our second meeting this past week um after also a number of different small meetings that that Vern had set up um John I was laughing when you said that Vern has found his place with all those committees because I think he's found his place with diversity equity and inclusion he's doing really a phenomenal job of managing a committee that meets over Zoom with two screens worth of people um and is also doing a good job of really spending the time giving the committee a chance to get to know each other and really dive into the reasons why we're doing the work instead of jumping immediately to problems and solutions spending time understanding the issues which should give us the guidance we need down the road to be able to make values based decisions um
070so we spent a while over the past few weeks um discussing about four reasons why we believed that this work was important for the district to engage in for students for staff for our community looking both inwardly at student experience and also outwardly in terms of what we want what uh capacities we want students to have when they're leaving our district um and going off into the world and we then spent some time exploring the concept of implicit bias and really delving into a conversation about that um so that we can eventually look at how that's impacting all of us as individuals within the district community and in particular our students so um Vern really gets all the credit in the world for really creating a process to begin exploration of a challenging topic and
071really bringing everybody into that and valuing different voices in that conversation so really all the credit to Vern in that process great thank you very much uh let's see covid-19 please Jen I will be really quick tonight um I'd like to Echo uh the Praises of Vern again I think he has absolutely found his niche in difficult and challenging topics and he he just does so well our our last couple of meetings have been uh very shorten to the point solving some very particular detailed issues um and beyond that I'd like to compliment Brian and Mike especially Mike actually showed up a couple of weeks ago to help uh the Schneider family set up special fans around the gym in PES for the cheerleaders to be able to do open gym on campus which made
072a whole bunch of teenage girls really happy and you have to understand how much that means to me personally since I have two teenagers having them happy is awesome um beyond that though Mike actually took quite a bit of time to help us get some things put together including um a standalone filtration unit that that we put in place uh there as well um John's comments about ionization versus filtration were absolutely on we've also talked about that in the covid-19 committee I keep trying to push Channels with the governor to be able to get ionization that's appropriate in school districts but we haven't won that one yet stay tuned great thank you very much uh Jamie anything from you to wrap us up here nope that's all I have okay great nice to see everybody
073take good care of yourselves I'll ask for emotions to adjourn Michelle and Jen all in favor thank you very much good night Happy Thanksgiving everybody oh that's right Happy Thanksgiving yeah good night everybody bye bye Happy Thanksgiving everybody