001e all right good evening everyone and welcome to to the December 20th Board of Education meeting of the Chester Union Free School District if everyone would please rise for the pledge 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 we'll need a motion to adopt tonight's agenda I'll make that motion second all in favor I I any oppos that carries and we'll need a motion to approve our board meeting minutes from our December 6th meeting I'll make that motion I'll second are there any corrections or additions all in favor I any opposed extensions thank you that carries and that will lead us right into our presentations we'll start with Miss Garcia welcome welcome
002hello good after evening everyone it's been a long day um I want to wish everyone a happy holidays and I'm going to start by sharing something that was pretty amazing um we are officially we have officially applied uh for the Seal of V literacy and it's been approved and we are officially a year one school and I want to just give an overview of what that means and what it is um I want you to bear with me as this is new for me as well I've been attending uh professional development and webinars to kind of learn what needs to be done in order for us to make it an effective experience for our students and for the committee that's year but it's a learning process um so I will do my best to answer
003any clarifying questions that you may have but uh it's a new thing but it's exciting so the purpose of the Seal of by literacy is to recognize high school graduates who have attained a high level of proficiency in listening speaking reading and writing in one or more languages in addition to English so by offering the seal the schools clearly state that Mastery of two or more World languages is a critical scale for their graduates it takes the form of an official seal that appears on the students diploma and a notation on the students's transcript and graduation program it is accompanied by a medallion and a certificate that is signed by the associate commissioner um since this Inception we've had uh there's a total of like 33,000 students in New York state that have the Fe
004the seal in more than 80 World languages and English so this is not uh easy feat to attain there's only 3% of New York State students that earned that seal and after um analyzing the criteria uh we have a POC committee that's working on identifying and Miss Derman has been the lead uh in identifying who the students are so we now have eight students that qualify for the seal and the next step is I'll be working with Miss tman and the committee uh to then notify the students um I attended a webinar last week on how to promote the seal they have flyers and like over 80 languages they have information fers for families in the 80 languages um so the next step uh is to identify they said to create I need to create
005a panel um so one of the steps in identifying who these people are is to provide a survey to the staff to find out who uh among our staff speak what languages other than English so that gives the opportunity for students who are going to do their presentations um we can create the panel by uh staff members um in the community as well and then if there is a chance that let's say a student um is going to do a presentation Ukrainian um and we don't have a person then um the AR and uh the person who's in charge of the Seal of viy in the state they give us links to people to connect and then we can get outside people to come in and uh perform the evaluation uh process so that is
006exciting um they also uh emailed us uh various seals that we can promote and put in our um social media platforms and in our school website and uh yeah so I added links to that so the seal is required to have members uh of person in the guidance Department e Ela teacher World Language teacher and ESL teacher and um I am the seal by literacy coordinator I'll be working with the teachers collaboratively to get this up and going and um speaking transitioning into the second item that I have is uh we trying to provide additional support in our world language department and uh the book that they used was called realidades and it was copyrighted in 2011 and the textbook is now being Sunset so they are no longer publishing that one so we were
007looking into different things and then we purchased as a resource to offer support for level one and level two Spanish um is called SOS and it's a little bit more interactive and student friendly it has videos it has um uh worksheets it has lesson plans so it's more formalized and structured um I think it would be beneficial for the World Language Department to um use a more updated curriculum in that sense and the cool thing about this one is that when they do updates there is uh there's like over 50 21 different units and when they the the people who mod modify the curriculum there there's a table that has the dates where those modifications have been made and when so it's ongoing continuously ongoing um updated so I think this year they're evaluating looking
008at it and trying it out and I will give you more information on that to see the Spanish 3 the intermediate we'll also use the intermediate version of it and I want to share some positive news and uh miss last year uh Mr vman uh joined uh sunas wio in his administrative uh degree and I had the stressful pleasure of being his internship uh mentor and he completed uh his project and he finally finished and I just wanted to give him a shout out for working on it so this year he completed his program and did an excellent job developing a meaningful project that provided access to faculty and students in the elective classes in the new uh Chester Academy maker space so then um he kind of worked uh during the plc's uh with
009the uh elected teachers and they each uh the Arts Miss kryer uh music they all worked in a different project utilizing the maker space features and uh during Mr um Flanigan's presentation he will come and share the presentation with you but I added there to the links to give you a preview of the great work that he did so um shout out to him for that uh then I have a presentation uh elevating uh student voices so after attending several Dei workshops on elevating student voice uh in the last two months there were like four different sessions um I organized a student expert panel and the very first time I was able to um put it into action was trying to come up with a creative way to make the family instructional Academy more meaningful
010uh two parents and then I kind of want you to see what they were able to do and then I'm going to have immani Curtis come and join me so you can come over here if you wish um so that she was one of the students who participated and then it took on a world of its own so I kind of want to uh show you the presentation so um if you look at the screen these were the expert panelists where we set up in the maker space and we kind of set it up as a table uh so that they can look professional up there um and I want to do a overview so Dei Works uh is a journey not a destination and student voice is critical in the Dei efforts and elevating
011student voice for equity and input is an ongoing process who better to help us do the work than the students who have lived experiences and have a better pulse of what our school is like and they have the expertise so students need to be able uh to be seated at the table and have a voice in schools um we should make them Partners in the work give them a guided organized platform to lead and have input in the decision- making process of our district are we just hearing them or are we truly listening to what they have to say so with that I organized uh I formalized the process I gave them uh something to draw eras markers to write so if the parents had questions they can get their thoughts organized every expert wasn't
012every student was an expert in different things so they were like taking notes and coming up with things that they wanted to share uh to to the parents and um the first uh time I used utilized the students was for the student academic support so uh I worked with Miss McKenzie uh Mr aguil and then I the students were the experts in it and that was last month November 28th and in an effort uh I already explained that that's you see Miss McKenzie there uh with the students while they were answering questions our student expert panelist is such an amazing job providing tips for families and sharing their experiences our experts were articulate informative and knowledgeable I just had to do like a five minute 10 minute uh prep time telling them what the format
013was and they were like quick to uh organize it so I kind of want you to uh I did little clips of it so so you can hear it so we had parents who asked questions so so this is one of the questions um and I got permission to use this video um you know I know a lot of kids struggle um you know so you know my son actually struggles with it so how do you if anybody in there would be willing to share is you know how how do you handle anxiety you know when you're going to take a test or you have to stand up in front of an audience or something like that so the big question was how do you handle anxiety and then students were answering the questions and
014this was some of the responses to multiple questions so um when studying for midterms I mean going through it six years there's like definitely I've like discovered a lot of different like tips so what I like to do is like write everything out for that subject and then cross off what I know and circle like what I need to study and then start from there so like break it down maybe not everyday studying if you start like a month before the test studying maybe like break it up not every day and like focus on that topic if you still need to go back to it go back to it at the end and like um go through each of the topics that you need help with so you have time to ask your teacher if
015you do need extra assistance with anything so one of the question that the parents asked because they were new to middle school and they didn't know how to help their child during midterms week which is coming up in January so they were able to give them tips on how to handle that I'm tring to move to the next slide how do I do that hold so um when starting for Mid as they possibly can um to help you if you have anxiety before a test they might take you out in a hallway to take the test out there they might give you extra time extra just extra resources to prepare it'll give you a lot is key it's so important to like open up to um teachers guidance counselors It's good to utilize all of
016those resources that you have and it will help you more than you know they possibly can is key it's help I actually got um tutored by Memphis and we usually um got set up like a place after school we would usually go through like guidance or a teacher would set us up place here or a different classroom and she would go through like the assignments she'd go over homework and then she'd set up practice problems and then any like future things we could go over which really helped my great a lot and it it was great overall so here they were um telling the parents of the tutoring services that is provided uh by the guidance Department through the volunteers of students and the um I actually got um tutored and this was an experience
017from a new student um at Chester Academy coming to Chester just last year so everything's kind of brand new to me and I think we're really like lucky and really blessed to be surrounded by really good adults in the building they all help us to like achieve our goals that we really want want to achieve when I got here I didn't I didn't know what I was doing you know like I wasn't really focused on if I'm being honest I wasn't focused on my grades I wasn't focused on anything you know like to really push me where I where I should want to be and the second I got here like I was able to start a step club like I was able to join volleyball I do multiculture Club I I help with events
018and fundraisers and all that stuff so um I do TST and I feel like now I have such a like deeper connection with a lot of the staff in the building that it makes it almost easier to balance the extracurricular activities and my grades at the same time because there's a sense of comfortability which with each adult to not feel oh I'm scared or you know they know exactly where I'm coming from and just being honest and to kind of like piggyback off of like um how you guys can help in that as well being um the parent you're such a big part of your you know child's life and as much as it's I'm good like when I come home you I feel like personally I feel like I'm so drained from school that
019it's just like I'm good like like I don't really want to you need a time yeah so sometimes I just feel like I need a breather and then you just you know we come back to it like my mom's really good at that she'll just sit on my bed so tell me about this you know I know that you did this what club did you have today how did you do that how did it go and that's what really like kind of sets me at EAS and helps me like manage those little compartments of each um thing so yeah coming to Chester just last trying to move it to the next side and this is the so for me anxiety I just usually like I know this a terrible coping mechanism I really don't have
020like anything else but I just put it to the back of my mind cuz I know at the end you know if I do my best that I'll be okay um from my experience wise like you're doing presentations I remember I used to have Miss Garcia as a teacher and in the seventh grade she made us write speeches and had go the auditorium and when I tell you I was standing up there and I was like CH see I I rememberize I'm all good and she has printed out right and she goes go get your swiech I actually stood up stood up there and I was like but I think that you know she was like okay just calm down guys you know I took a deep breath and I did it anyway and I
021think it's great that um she spoke to us and she prepared us for it and you know I don't think like we I think we do a great job of like handling mental health and advocating with like guidance teachers I don't think any teacher like I've met I've had in this school has ever been like they don't care about you you know what I mean I think it's great to have that relationship as a teacher student type you know have that trust have that comtable relationship but yeah for me anxiety I and I wasn't in honors but in high school now I'm in honors classes cuz they helped me like overcome that battle okay so talk to talk talk to your teachers ask for help yeah definitely cuz that's especially with technology nowadays like kids
022are scared to talk to their teachers so definitely advocate for your kids to talk to teachers and I wasn't in honors but in and Michael Miller was unable to attend but then he sent me a video so that was this was my opening video to the parents um too he was talking about how important for students to stay active and participate in the after school clubs hi my name is Michael Miller and I'm a senior at Chester Academy I've been going to the Chester Union Free School District since I was in kindergarten and currently as a senior I maintain so many different clubs such as drama club cooking club and yearbook and maintaining all those different clubs could be very frustrating but definitely staying academically successful has pushed me to do better one tip I
023can give to a parent is definitely talking to your children about staying for after school clubs they're so important to do and they're also really good for a resume for college and so many other things hi my name is Michael Miller and I'm a and then this was like one of the comments for the parent to show it was kind of cool to see how the parent understood that wow learning from the students and the students hearing it from them was better than actually a teacher or myself trying to explain something to them and this is uh what she had to say their first wave of midterms and Midterm week so um like the study skills cuz heiring it from PE and hearing it from their teachers I feel so much more beneficial and effective
024compared to hearing it from me you so right so their first W this is what sparked than this so miss Mckenzie was uh facilitating the presentation with me so then last week for the entire week um she reached out with Miss cromo uh to the panelist and they actually participated in our tips for success in middle school and Beyond with sessions for sixth grade classes so all the sixth grade classes every day fourth period um were able to uh go to the maker space and the panelists sat in the learning stairs and present it to them and I want to give a shout out to uh our guance counselors in the Academy miss cormo and miss McKenzie who collaborated and organized the session so you can see in the pictures you have the attentive audience
025of the sixth graders who were paying attention and asking questions and every day based on the student schedule different panelists showed up and um I'm going to have um her come up and explain the session after I show you this video so we could just get that done with and this was like some of the I got some clips when I was there being in a club helps you cuz you're not sitting at home maybe don't have a good environment at home maybe you like your parents are you have siblings um so be in a club stay for study sessions so you can get your work done um find good friends and be nice to each other that's a big one thank you that's a great one and then they gave tips on the utilization
026of cell phones which was a thing in the uh sixth grade on your phone that is very mature for you guys I do it um because sometimes you get distracted and you'll be on it for an hour or two like then your day is wasted so set time limits um turn it off give it to your parents for a little bit um yeah and then this last one on phone this is about the phone also matters like outside of school like Skyler said especially when it's winter and it's like hard to get out of bed it could be like really easy to um get distracted on your phone and just not get any work done also matters like outside of school and then I will talk about next steps um but I'm going to have
027Iman come up and explain her experience like that's her questions uh good evening so this was honestly really cool to do because it kind of brought everything full circle like being able to give advice to sixth graders which is you know something that I wish I had in sixth grade as well you know some some of the groups are like a little shy at first but the other group that um my group had was like so attentive and like was asking a whole bunch of questions like some that I still need work on too so was some question uh they were asking like again like what to do with their phones one of the kids even said like what to do if someone is like mean to you and it was just like you know
028really cool to see like these kids asking these certain questions and how we can um answer them and help them um yeah it was just a really cool experience yeah the one with the parents at first I thought it was going to be intimidating but it was really cool to see like how the school has so many different um well each student has so many different ways of learning because everyone learns in a different way so these parents like came out of it with a whole bunch of different ways to study with like checking their grades with staying on top of their homework so they each get different point of views because everyone learns differently at the end of the day so then uh I have a couple of next steps so I kind of
029um want to work on creating uh an extensive panel of different students uh who are represented in various uh areas so the sports students who are in music students who are in honor students students who are in special ed um so um my goal is to create like a Google form of app applicants um for student volunteers teachers coaches and staff and I want to give a shout out to Mr jet because I wanted to make sure that that first panel had a variety of different students so he gave me a list of recommended recomended uh student athletes from that and then in that panel there was student athletes so I wanted it a well-rounded uh background because one of the things that I learned from the training was that sometimes when you have a
030student councils is the same students so you're missing voices of of students who are no longer who are not in that club um so um in the training they were saying that you can utilize once you create the panel then I can be able to spread it out to the faculty and staff whom I need to utilize the students so creating a principal's uh advisory uh group or a superintendent uh Advisory Group so if M hav needs a group of students for ex amount to ask about sports then I can reach out to those pan panelist experts too um listen uh to give them feedback um I wanted uh in one school they were using the students uh to be part of the curriculum review one of the things that I found amazing was that
031often times I we survey the teachers we survey staff and we forget the kids right the students like we choose to work here the students are here because they have no choice but they we don't listen to what they have to say so channeling the student voice will get input too and I'm like yes the kids know right they can tell uh what's wrong and you ask for an idea but sometimes we're afraid to listen to what they have to say so one of the things that they say you're going to have a panel be ready to hear what they have to say are you listening and that's one of the key uh points so I want to utilize them uh for town halls or de committee so um that was it you have any
032questions for me wow um that that was wonderful um thank you mon for for speaking on behalf of the the student panel um I love that idea and I'm so happy that it's been introduced into the school um you're right it is a voice that's often overlooked but um is a very important component um to having that engagement um you need to have the students involved um um so I think having whether it's in a a peer support capacity or an advisory capacity I think there's a tremendous amount of value in having this um in the district um does anyone have any questions no I wanted to thank you for all of the work that went into the biliteracy seal I think it's such a wonderful program and originally when I heard about it I
033thought it was something that was only offered within like the four walls of the school I didn't realize how much flexibility there is for students who might be interested that want to do an at home study program um so I think the flexibility there is is fantastic um when I started in Chester in kindergarten English was a second language for me and then over time it fell off so if I had something like this available to me in high school I think I would have definitely embraced that part of it like polish just fell off for me I wasn't interested in high school I was only doing sports but if I knew that something like this was available to put on a college application I think I probably would have been more motivated and incentivized
034to to use that so I think it's just such a great opportunity uh and very unique so thank you I was a for my L2 and English was my second language and the problem is that the more you learn English the Spanish or the second language goes away unless you have a dual language program right so it was on to like studied abroad in Dominican Republic myself senior year in college and I was like oh I had to write my essays in English there was no Google back then and translate using a Spanish English dictionary to Spanish because I no longer think in Spanish so it was like the hardest year of my life because I had to like you are you fully bilingual right and you have to like exercise it so I I
035think that this is going to be very meaningful to students to uh learn a new language or to you know uh Force the the current language that they speak so I think we're we're in the right direction yeah absolutely I think um this is a great addition to we have the Seal of Civic Readiness and now to have biliteracy um I think this speaks to another group another segment of of our student population um I did have a question at what grade level do they start working towards this is it a middle school or is it a ninth grade high school program that they start working on it I'm glad that I can answer that question I was like okay so um they can utilize well the seal begins in high school and they can
036use any assignment that they've used in the four years that they've been in school so the assignment can be something that they did in English n and translate it and do a presentation in Spanish for that English paper they could do a topic presentation because I know like Mr Stover does over presentations in the um in his 10th grade uh Global class they can use that project if they choose to and translate it to the language that they want to do the presentation so it's not extra work right it's something that they are interested in something that already existed and is just presenting it to the panel because they have to have show uh dominance in written form speaking and listening right so it's all for Content areas that's why English is important as well
037because they have to maintain the 80 uh five average in English in their class as well and they get points for different things and then the project to get accumulated points for that so it could be any assignment that they already did so they don't have to do something new they just have to translate it great thank you um my last comment is congratulations to Mr Rodman that's exciting when um you know when our when our staff continue on self-improvement and what they bring to the district by continuing their education so thank you for for mentoring uh Mr Rodman I'm sure very excited to to have you very engaging um but it congratulations to him on putting in that work okay thank you thank you thank you Mr duet you are up good evening everyone
038let me just pull up this real quick for later in my presentation so it's ready good evening in case everyone was wondering it's ugly sweater night at the basketball game uh this is my uniform for the the evening that we actually had an ugly sweater day today and John Marcelo does a good job every year of uh we actually send an invite to the opposing school and what we do is instead of wearing warm-ups that night we warm up in our ugly sweaters well not me I don't warm up but the team warms up in their ugly sweaters and then obviously they take them off for game time but it's a nice little thing that we do every year John's made a tradition out of it and the other schools depending on what school we're
039playing tend to get involved with it so it's definitely a lot of fun um that being said uh we have that I have a lot of good news I was I love writing reports so I can just say nothing but good things so there was a lot of good news in this report uh first and foremost uh I led with this last year in December and I'm happy to do it again this year that all of our fall Varsity athletic teams made scholar athlete and just for anyone who wasn't here last year that means that 75% of your roster scored at a 90 or better average so the way that way it works is We Do It season by season and at the end of the year hopefully we get one of two Awards of
040school of Distinction or School of Excellence uh I believe we got school of Distinction last year which is 75% of our varc teams uh we just missed school of excellence last year we had one team that just didn't make it uh every one of our other varsity teams had made it so I made it my own personal goal this year to try and get 100% which is our school of excellence we're there we're one third away there and the good news is the one team that didn't make it didn't have right now currently does not have a single player on academic restriction or probation at all so it was funny because I walked into the practice to let the coach know when the fail list came out for the first marking period that hey you
041know you have nobody on it and the team celebrated so it was fun to walk into the practice and see that because they accepted the challenge they embraced it and they succeeded so so I'm hoping that the rest of the teams follow that and that we can I can bring to you next September our school of excellence award uh so for and that actually includes all of our teams that we were shadowing other schools so it wasn't just our in-house schools uh teams so it was girls swimming and Diving who we Shadow with uh Goan girls volleyball girls soccer football who we have some sewer players with us boy soccer and Bo country cross country which we Shadow with Florida so it was welld deserved by everyone speaking of grades we have academic eligibility and
042I have another update for you so first of all we were at 0.7% I was so happy to say we were under 1% for our student athletes who are on restriction we only had 12 students building wide 7 through 12 that run any kind of academic intervention for athletics at all and today because progress boards were due this afternoon I did a little bit of homework to see that uh I didn't do the fail list yet but I wanted to look at the progress reports for students who had completed their eight study sessions so an important topic for me is what happens when they do their eight study sessions and this is a conversation I've had with the board before about what are we doing for the students are they just going and sitting in
043the study hall and we've talked about you know sending them out to the different academic teachers to make it more constructive for them well of the 12 students once we did the eight study sessions we're down to four four students building that are on academic restriction or probation and actually only one of those four is on restriction and so that I've never seen that since I've been here and I've been here for I've been coaching here for almost 20 years that's an amazing number the credit goes to the students they they you know they've really taken to this and they're trying to put their best foot forward I think we are finally out of that transition from covid and it's making a difference and we have a little bit more of a structured academic policy
044and program and study halls and it's it's really paying off so it's very exciting to see that project reports are due tomorrow so or we're due today I should get the faist tomorrow so hopefully my next board report in January I'll have even better news for you uh communication so as promised we were going to roll out the section 9 R school system for practices we've been doing it it's been working very well we're actually going to replace our daily emails with daily links for parents staff faculty stuff we send around the building all day and said we usually we send our schedule out via email now we're just going to send a link out say please click this link everything's going to be there it's all on the section9 website everybody can see it
045uh I just I in my report you saw we have cheerleading has made their debut uh they made their first they made their original debut at the pep rally but now they've made their game debut so they've been at some of the basketball games it's been fun to see them uh in action the exit survey update we did I just rolled it out earlier this week and late last week as promised we did decide to split it into two surveys one for parents and one for students and the reason why we did that we found that once we made it we couldn't quite make it accurate enough for one group so we needed to split it apart so we get some different questions in there uh so far because we just rolled it out earlier
046this week we do have seven parents replyed but we had 31 students reply and that's only in a few days so I expect you know once they're over break and people kind of check their email we should get more of those and the nice thing about using a we use the Google form for it we get a wonderful statistic statistical analysis that at some point I'll be able to share with you once everything comes in let's see social media up to 566 posts which brings me to my last topic for you so I do have a brief presentation for you on the screen behind you because one of the things we did and I had thanked the bunch of people a few months ago about transitioning Miss Cisco's classroom which I'm currently using for the
047sports media class into a kind of a makeshift computer lab so we transitioned the kids from Chromebooks to computers now when we were using the Chromebook books what you see behind you is our old content where it's all still frame you know there was some animations some things we could do with it but it was a struggle to kind of do anything with any kind of substance but the fun part came when we started being able to use the computers and I'll play you a couple of these see if I can make this yeah bring it in I can't win yeah I can't win St I'm faded one 10 pushing with it push it to the Limit pushing with it push it to the limit so the fun part about this and I I'm not
048going to expand the rest of them but I will at least let me get out of the screen I will at least show you you know play a couple of these in in small frame but what you're going to notice with a lot of these is we've been able to embed video and pictures and different things we've been working with the yearbook committee like we do every year we've been working with Rob Alonzo uh it's kind of been our uh quote unquote photographer for a lot of our games but a lot of the things we're able to celebrate we're able to celebrate with these [Music] videos [Music] and I'll just play one more for you real quick because they also have gotten kind of cute with some of their [Music] themes [Music] [Applause] so you
049can go through these videos at your leisure if you just go to our at Chester Athletics uh Chester Academy Athletics on Twitter Facebook or X now not Twitter Facebook Instagram you'll see tons of these but the interesting part about it is if you go back to September or even go back to last year because everything from last year is still up there if you look at that and see where we've gone from not this past September but the previous September to the end of the year that growth was incredible but now look at this past September to this because of the technology we' be able to bring into the classroom and the kids love it and the first thing I said to them how we feel about the new computers like oh it's so much
050better because we can do stuff like this and we're they're just and canva the program we use is just started allowing us to music which you hear in all of our posts now so it's been a lot of fun because I end up in the front of the classroom every day just kind of picking through their post while they're working on it because we can share the screen and just all right try this try that and they're finding things I had no idea you can even do on myself on this you know we know how we are students with technology usually they're the experts so I'm learning a lot from them and we were able to actually um through a mutual friend that I have with someone we were able to bring with jeen beretto
051the workplace learning we actually now have an intern we have a there's a woman who's a a bar CT uh she passed a bar to be a lawyer in New Jersey and New York and she's been a very successful corporate attorney for many many years and she's starting a side business and her side business is a health and wellness life coach she's certified she has all these credentials for it and one of the things I said to my class was this woman is looking for someone to help her build her website and her social media profile as anyone here interested I said you don't have to tell me now and people were jumping out of their seats so we end up going down to see Miss beretto and they yes yes yes and we send
052up a meet that's going to actually turn into a few other things as well so their ability to take this and showcase this to these people and say this is what we can do and they're very excited by it because just doing something as simple as this is going to make a social media impact for any local business and this person actually works out of New Jersey so we're expanding our borders a little bit with this and hopefully we get a few more online uh you know almost remote learning type of situations which is the reality of today's Workforce and that's all I have for you today you're right it was all good stuff it was um well I mean that's terrific the um you know the skill building that that's real world applicable from
053that Sports media class is terrific and the fact that the students are so engaged in it it almost means it's not like a class you know it's something that they really want to be doing and and dig into and dig deeper and get involved with they like it too because it's not necessarily structured like a traditional class it's basically we we it's almost like we're in our cubicles when we get there they have assignments week to week I give them their assignments for the week they just come in they sit down they get to work they produce the content they give it to me I post it it's it's almost like being at a job and they like they like their job yeah that's terrific and um you know congratulations to all of our um
054scholar athlete teams um you know that's not a small feat to have teams you know whether they're small or large but to to have that percentage of students doing that well academically and still being involved in their extracurriculars and getting the most out of that I think it it speaks volumes for the students who are who are participating um and their coaches for you know providing that leadership that academics is important and to make it make it a celebration you need that's what you're here for um but you can certainly excel at at more than one thing so um thank you for sharing that good news with us does anyone have any questions for Mr Jette or comments I have a quick question um well first of all congratulations to all the scholar athletes and
055coaches and but really the district for you know it's really the um support in the district that keeps all of that going too um I just had a question about the exit surveys are they Anonymous we record the emails but it it's confidential we don't give out the emails uh only I can see it uh we don't and one of the things I wrote in the letter I gave a letter with it that explained that we will not be sharing that information we're only going to share the statistics um for various reasons um not collecting emails there's been an internal debate about that we weren't sure if we were going to collect them or not collect them because uh some of the they're very honest I mean there there's a lot of uh people that
056are very honest about what their performance was and how they feel about the athletic department or the coaching staff so people weren't necessarily holding back on positive there was a lot of positive information as well to make it Anonymous we we weren't sure how that was going to go just because you know you know how it is on social media these days and everything and we see it every day working with the kids and for someone just to have open Forum to say whatever they want without any consequences is is a a little bit of a debate you know is that something we're willing to accept to get the information or should there be accountability for what you're saying so we we went back and forth on that and ultimately decided we wanted to collect
057email addresses but they would be kept confidential at all times anything else thank you Mr duet and you rock the ugly sweater perect thank you very much have a wonderful holiday I look forward to seeing you in January all right Mr Spence good evening good evening happy holidays see want to wish everybody board uh superintendent assistant superintendent everybody a happy holiday season of course so we're very good to see everybody um you see it's been a very festive day at Chester Academy today with the I'll call them holiday sweaters I won't say ugly sweaters I don't want to make that judgment uh but everybody's wearing their Christmas gear and so forth I as you see I'm wearing what Mr Michelle used to call my candy cane tie so uh so we're all very festive today
058uh anticipating the holiday whatever holiday um you s you actually uh um partake in you have my board report and um you see that there's a number of things going on as always in the area of technology and data I'm not going to read the report to you of course there's a couple things I'd like to highlight and then I'd like to uh give you a chance to ask any kind of questions you would like to at this point in time um as we transition into January uh you know next week of course offices are open um in the district on Wednesday and Thursday those are very valuable days it gives the tech team a chance to play a little catch up with Chromebooks um on my end there's some uh State reporting that I'll
059be working on I'll be working on checking accounts for the upcoming January cbts the computer-based testing we have a simulation day that's going to be happening at the Academy on January 16th for our eighth graders they're going to be trying the new New York State science C CBT and so that's something that's new this year from the state and we're trying it on the 17th the elementary school will be doing their cbts they're going to be doing third grade and fifth grade is what Miss AOS had chosen with her teachers and then we're getting ready of course for January 8th is the start of our second round of Di di agnostic assessments for the I ready exams so the way this works one of the things I'll be working on next week is checking accounts
060there's a data upload that comes from school tools up to the various programs but then there's a cut off so when you get new students you have to make sure that you have every single student in the portal um we've received the special ed modifications thank you to miss lus and her staff and those have to be checked for each and every student so that we're following uh obviously uh a accommodations and and testing practices for those exams in January so it's a very busy time with testing as usual and we look forward to it and Tech team will be um supporting this and I'll be doing some optional trainings for teachers like I usually do as Google meets and supporting along the way um Friday November 17th was a submission date for our beds
061data beds day was back on October 4th so we were able to successfully submit our beds data um Miss O'Hara U Mr lepri and myself worked on that and that was submitted to the state and so that is good that we've checked that off the list and move on to other requirements from the state uh moving on I've mentioned in my last couple board reports I'm not going to give you the list tonight a lot of creative lessons as I come to the end of my observation list one of the things I did want to mention is a new tool that was acquired for this year um in the library media center um by um Miss dioro Miss diorio has been working with a number of teachers um specifically uh what I've been in contact
062with is Miss diorio has been working with Miss Edwards and Miss relay and they've been doing some research in this product using this product called noodle tools and so that's been very very successful it's been well accepted by the teachers and it's good to see of course our library media specialist and all the skill sets that she has assisting the teachers across the curriculum so that's been very very very helpful and then miss diorio is doing her own projects research skills in her sixth grade Library classes so um again it's great to get in the classrooms it's great to see those things and it's great to see when software is acquired that it's actually being utilized and it's a benefit to the teachers that's that's the where the proof is in the pudding as you
063see uh we're working on our budget cycle so that's another thing I'll be working on next uh week in those two very valuable office days of submitting a technology budget budgets now budgets are due um this month we are waiting for a couple of our quotes for our Chromebooks and for our desktop computers there's some things that changed on the New York State a list as they call it and so but we're wrapping up our technology request our software requests other requests um including some new um computers for Mr duet's classroom we're getting all our quotes into the business office so that those could be evaluated obviously by the administration and by the board as we work towards the spring vote cyber security security awareness continues to grow across uh the state and the nation
064um I attended a December 6 cyber update in Fishkill with our partner CSI and some of the New York state representatives the uh data privacy officer and security officer for the state of New York were at these uh trainings and many many Tech directors from the four counties were there and they gave us some you know chilling statistics about what's going on around the world um you may not know it because things are very very quiet here on our Network which we like but there are Cyber Wars going on across the globe everything that you see on the news uh things are affected in cyberspace so it's always important to stay ever Vigilant with cyber security I'll be telling you about what we're doing this month in one moment and then I just wanted to
065update you that we did reive the additional uh Verizon Wi-Fi extenders and we are working with um Mr D Rosa Mr Sutton and his team to get those installed at a very good cost saving to the district the two departments again working together to improve our Verizon signal uh for um our users and for our safety plan and then finally I just wanted to note that the digital Equity survey we're encouraging parents if you can to jump into the parent portal take a couple minutes literally per student and please fill out the eight questions their yes no questions and if you could do that there is an upload coming from all school districts up to New York state in January and so um if they could do that that would be very very helpful and
066as Miss O'Hara has reminded parents please also make sure your contacts are updated in school tools that is to say your phone number your email address because uh snow delays and things of that sort um are potentially coming in the future and uh we want to make sure we have your contacts so please reach out to the offices if you need to update uh those items and then the last little bit um that I wanted to really explain is what we're doing again in regard to security is we're working on a plan for something I've noted in my uh board reports called MFA now MFA stands for multiactor authentication um I just wanted to show you a very very short two-minute video clip to just show you what multiactor authentication is I'm going to first
067T turn the volume down just a little bit so you don't get blasted out of uh your seats and if you want to turn can be a headache for it pros and users we often equate complexity with security but the most effective approach to security is the simplest multiactor authentication multiactor authentication means authenticating access with two or more factors which includes something you have something you are and something you know your users and their passwords can be the weakest link in your security profile and leave you blind to who's really accessing your data and your network but multiactor authentication unequivocally validates a user's identity without inconveniencing them there are a variety of technologies that can provide multiactor authentication smart cards tokens Biometrics or a secure app on your mobile device this flexibility lets you customize
068your authentication process based on what you're protecting striking the right balance between it security and user convenience security for it Simplicity for users fewer headaches for all that's multiactor Authentication okay so at my conference they really highlighted and mentioned that passwords are are really an old technology uh it's not secure there are tools online that you can hack passwords relatively simple so you need something called two-factor or multiactor authentication so we've been rolling out um and come up with a plan to roll out something called a token key and so we've been walking around I jokingly say Old St Nick and his elves are coming around to give you your holiday present and so we've already given out 86 of these so everybody who has a Google account for Chester schools including our lucky board
069members will very soon receive a token and what this will do is this will uh allow you to hit a button generate a code and in addition to your password this will be the two factors to let you in you'll have to know your password which only you know and you'll have to have this device to hit a button to generate the code and so that is what most Security Experts are saying is needed um I would not say it's a new technology I was sharing with Miss O'Hare and others the year was 1992 I was working on the IBM help des and they rolled out something called a token key fob and I would take phone calls and reset people's tokens so this is a technology that's 30 years old it's not brand new
070but the schools now are putting this in place for the security that is definitely needed and then finally and I'll go to your questions I want to share a little bit of good news um from our Tech Team um we had a former Tech Team uh member his name was Ryan Bellow and Ryan Bellow uh worked on the tech team for a couple of years he was former US military he served in Afghanistan just the nicest nicest kid in the world so he received a job at West Point as a full-time cyber security expert um and he was highlighted recently in a number of news reports some of our current interns said oh I had a training with this guy from West Point Ryan Bellow and so he's been actually featured in some news reports
071and news uh paper reports and so forth what I wanted to highlight was um Ryan being Ryan and Ryan being such a nice fellow he gave credit where credit was due and just to read this Ryan said I was able to draw from the skills I learned in the mounts Labs during my internship at Chester Union Free School District and West Point Military Academy I was able to apply these skills to combat R ransomware analyze the spread of viruses and help build Access Control policies so in other words this internship which we started um I proposed to Mr Michelle in 2012 and we started we've had about 45 College interns this is real world experience we've had so many people go on and actually get real technology jobs like Ryan Ryan is the nicest uh
072person you'll ever meet in your life always smiling always friendly so it's good to see that this experience is beneficial to the district and also to uh the individual we have a former Tech team member on the agenda tonight who is leaving us sadly who works at the elementary school right now in the maker space he started on the tech team for four years supporting Chromebooks helping users and so forth so I would just share that um it's great to see it's sad to see people leave but it's great to see this proven ground of this internship where it's a benefit to the individual who's a college student and to the district and then they go on and they use that experience to move on when I was in college I was an intern at
073IBM for five years and that's what why I proposed the idea to Mr Michelle that's all I have for right now I'd like to take any questions that you might have well that was that was a very nice story about Ryan bow um and it just stresses even more to the point of our workplace learning program that the value of internships you know this was a an intern that was mentored here in our district we send students out into the community for experiences just like that that help them grow and eventually become you know whatever they they are going to be um I can't believe we're talking about budget already but yes we are so um you'll keep us surprised of you know what um what the needs will be for the district for next
074year I'm sure um I just had a question about the website update um because of the um change in ownership of the um what was it Blackboard is now becoming final final site final site yes um is that going to be seamless is everything going to look the same we kind of just got used to our website so is everything going to be the same to us as a user well I'm going to let Miss O'Hara jump in if she wants I don't want to um you know because it's a a team effort on the website but what I would say is there are additional enhancements through final site so final site purchase Blackboard and so now there's new templates but many of them are pretty close to what we have now but there are
075some additional enhancements we're working with our communication team Mike beager and so forth and we're looking into this and we think it'll be a benefit for our community uh when I was a teacher in Dess County um I was a a teacher and I was the Web Master I use final site and so forth so I'm familiar with the product but it's something we're excited about um this is what's happening in the technology world one company buys another which buys another so things are always changing but from what we've seen in the final site world and the templates we think that it's it's it's very exciting for our community great is there anything you'd like to add no I would just mention that um yeah we we just were in the beginning phases of launching
076a new website that was improved from what we had previously but by no means was the is the website that we have in place complete um there's much more work to do we've had had some great feedback from the um parent advisory panel in terms of and and things were changed based on that feedback so it is a work in progress and behind the scenes if it's Blackboard or final site it will continue to be through the lens of continuous Improvement so if anything it will improve it won't be a completely vastly different structure if it is um in terms of layout right it would it wouldn't be content um as we're working to improve but the layout might change uh somewhat but all of that as we continue to do um will be incorporating
077feedback from our families in terms of uh again what we can improve with uh efficiency and and certainly with making sure that our information that is most important to parents and families is easily accessible thank you anything else I could help with thiso time um thank you for pointing out um the updates the contact updates that parents should be checking to make sure that their contact info is current um you're right we're getting into that season um so we want to make sure that all of our parents can be reached in the event of a a snow emergency or other I did have a technology Night Before Christmas little rhyme but I'm going to for the for the sake of brevity I'm going to uh defer and I'm going to leave the Poetry to my
078esteemed colleague Miss Garcia does anyone else have anything for Mr Spence thank you thank you have a very nice and we appreciate the seasonal candy candy cane stripe tie it's going back in the closet will come out thank you Mr D Roa hi guys I don't own any ugly sweaters and I don't own any Christmas ties we could fix that I I I got to work on that I think it's safe to say that uh Mr ducet most likely won the ugly sweater contest go big or go home he went big he went big um so uh Miss nagler Miss O'Hara board education thank you guys for the opportunity to update you on buildings and grounds this P past month I'd like to start with um kind of reviewing the Maple Avenue claim so to
079speak at a very high level so as as you know we had a uh a loss at Maple Avenue and uh we've been working D diligently to get that building back up uh and and safe so recently within the last week we received the first iteration of a claim from our insurance company and uh we are um uh factchecking those numbers so to speak so the district has hired a engineering and Architecture Firm to over Overlook um the claim that that nyser put together there are some items on there that were missing there were some items that were incomplete we have since received received their report back um and now we're going to start the negotiation process with our insurance company so I bring this up because it it it's very important to the future
080of Maple Avenue and what the decision will be so I know um in previous conversations we've talked about um the cost of demo or the cost of doing other things as as an option uh for that building and we haven't had complete information so we're getting there um we um both the district and the insurance company have submitted their proposals um well I should say I'm sorry the insurance company submitted their proposals we have yet to submit ours to the insurance company and start that negotiation that will happen very likely as soon as tomorrow uh possibly so there'll be more to come uh on that is there any questions regarding that situation all right so also we uh are in in the midst of a 5-year building condition survey so to kind of recap what
081that means New York State requires all school districts to perform a what's called a building condition survey this was born from some pretty uh severe tragedies that happened in school districts one of them being a roof collapse at a local school district um and what it what it requires is the school district to hire a third-party engineering and architectur or firm to review the physical envelope of all of our buildings uh all of our critical systems boilers Air Handlers um duck work everything that that goes into making sure our students are safe and comfortable in the buildings that has started uh and it is due on March 1st we're well within um that time frame to have it submitted the other important thing that a building condition survey does is it outlines the big ticket
082items uh of repair over the next 5 years so it creates a five it helps us create a 5-year Capital plan um we anticipate things like the academy boilers to be on there over the next five years and potentially some air handlers in the uh in the high school um so that'll be done on on March 1st and once completed I will report back to you guys and let you know um what the status of that that report was um we have received some complaints and rightfully so uh about the condition of the sinks in the elementary school and I wanted to say publicly that we see it we agree um these are old terazzo terazzo is a is a stone Basin that's mixed with different resins and over the years that resin breaks down
083and they become impossible to clean there's so many little crevices and the rocks and so on that um it they look terrible so with Miss O'Hara and Mr Brennan's leadership we have been able to budget for new basins and we are in the process of replacing those so we're hoping to get the first few done uh in the beginning in January but they will happen over um several weekends it's really going to take through the rest of the year it's a pretty extensive project but it'll happen over the weekends um and a lot of the work will be done inhouse as a cost savings and then finally just wanted to touch on what Miss Dar Spence said uh regarding our Verizon cell phone repeaters so um Verizon cell service throughout the district has been very
084very poor um we have received these Verizon repeaters and um we've also received a quote from Verizon to install these repeaters at the cost of about $2,000 so obviously that was extremely high we took that work inhouse and we are having halfway done with the installation we anticipate um the the remainder of these uh uh repeaters to be installed by probably the second week in January so if you have Verizon I'm sure you've noticed that you have full bars in this room um as we just we Mr Patel uh literally just turned on our repeater that's right outside of the auditorium so I noticed before that we have full service and I'm looking forward to be able to field phone calls uh there's nothing more frustrating than leaving after a full day and I get
085to the stop sign and my phone just beeps like crazy with all the Miss messages so that's uh that's in progress and we anticipate that to be done um in the next two weeks or so and then uh as again Mr Spence metion mentioned we are in the budget cycle from a buildings and ground perspective there's a few things we're going to budget but the main focus will be regarding the physical IC safety of our buildings so um that will be presented to you guys in an upcoming meeting but um the the focus for this upcoming 24 budget cycle will be the physical safety of our district um and there'll be more to come on that so with that are there any questions does anyone have anything for Mr D Roa I just have one
086quick thing yeah you ready for winter no is the school ready for win yeah I mean the school is ready for winter I personally am not ready for winter I'm right there with you but no are are we all prepared um with all of the supplies we'll need I know sometimes um we get a surprise in you know we are no or early December we haven't had that thank goodness um well we we as a matter of fact we did use our new K cabota the little little guy we call Cubby he has a a ass salt thrower on the back and we used him there was an area um up in the student lot that was a bit icy and our building and grounds crew was very excited to go out and use this
087so uh we we can can test that it works and it works well but to answer your question we were fully stocked on all the materials that we need salts and um environmentally friendly salts for around the buildings um all of our equipment has been winterized our plows are installed we're ready to go it does not appear on at least the next 10day forecast that we have anything resembling snow um but now that you mention that uh we're going to get snow don't and we'll be ready we will be ready so okay terrific yeah well thank you and your team for all that you do in all of our buildings um and the grounds around them um you know we're we're very fortunate to be able to bring some of the projects that would otherwise
088be anex an expense that wasn't anticipated to be able to bring things inh housee and have the skill set of your team to do that work so please convey our thanks our gratitude for all that they do above and beyond as a regular part of their day well I know some of them are watching right now cuz uh they commented on how ugly my my sport jacket is but um but uh I I will bring that up to them personally tomorrow uh I I appreciate that thank you and kind of just tagging on what um Miss n said I assume we weathered the terrible rain Sunday into Monday I know some surrounding districts really struggled with that but we whether that okay in terms of flooding and everything yeah so ironically we have we have
089groundwater issues right with the floor and the cafeteria which is being addressed asking but uh when it comes to torrential downpours there's about two two and a half areas in our entire District that are problematic uh and they're very difficult to address but but they don't they're not problematic in a way where it would cause a disruption to students so um we handled it very well I think we were up to three and a half or 4 Ines of rain in a very short period of time and our buildings held up uh very well there were some minor leaks uh throughout but all in all we we held up pretty good it's it's the following weeks where the water starts to to absorb into the foundation which is a very specific phenomenon to uh um
090where this specifically the academy was built but um so far so good so far so good yes thank you have a great Christmas than you too thank you guys and happy holidays to you and your families appreciate the opportunity to update you thank you all right um as we finished with presentations that'll bring us to our first public comments section since there is no one um willing to or available to come down for public comment that'll take us to our round T discussion I'll turn it over first to miss Loftus thank you happy holidays to the board members and Chester Community uh I have a lot of shoutouts tonight so uh I'll get right started a big thank you to um special ed teachers it is the time of year that we're going through and
091looking at every class we have and all of the students that we have and kind of projecting what makes sense for next year uh so thank you to the Chesters at uh the Chester teachers at both buildings um for taking the time to really go through that process um they do a lot of time on their own and then they spend time with me talking about what makes sense for next year because what we um budget for and what we put in our master schedule is always based on student need so we're in the middle of that arduous process but um I'm really grateful for their support another thank you to our faculty and staff who participated in our gift Drive um we were uh able to support 40 some uh students um and uh
092every family also received a gift card to shoppr right thanks to the Town of Chester police so that was a great great collaboration um and I would be remiss as usual to not thank specifically Donna har and dear dpal off from my office who organized the whole thing so um thank you to everyone um for every part of that um it was really special to see the families picking up um and so they were so grateful for the support so glad we were able to do that um and then finally Mrs deuro Special Olympics is back so uh Orange County School District will part uh support the Special Olympics again countywide on Saturday April 13th it will again be held at Middletown um High School like it was last year so paperwork has gone out
093to families of students who qualify uh students have a special need criteria and then they also must be between the ages of 8 and 12 on the date of the event April 13th um so you should have received that if you think your student qualifies and you didn't please feel free to reach out uh because we are looking forward to hopefully hosting you know even more students than last year it was a really great time um I'll be there I know a bunch of our staff will be there so I'm looking forward to it once again this school year that is all I have for you this evening but I'd be happy to take any questions well we know your your office is is always busy but it starts to ramp up yes it does
094so we're feeling it already Yes um so thank you to you and all of the staff in in the office who keep the wheels turning and and preparing us for next year and you know what what our needs are going to look like in ter of Staffing and placements um and that's great news about the Special Olympics yes yeah we had two athletes last year um which is good for a small District but we're hoping to amp that up this year so terrific yeah does anyone have any questions or comments for Miss lus no thank you thank you Miss O'Hara you're up good evening everyone and uh with regard to Special Olympics a a special thank you to the Middletown School District who does a phenomenal job with regard to the organization the athletics department
095um all the staff that's involved outstanding event so thank you I'd like to uh say a special congratulations to Mrs scall and the Chester Academy voice Ensemble for their recent performance at Radio City Music Hall um what an incredible experience that reflects the talent of our students and the Excellence in education bringing opportunities for learning that Empower our students to reach their Highest Potential not to mention real world application at its best uh in addition if Radio City performance is not a bar set high enough Mrs scall just learned that they were honored with an in invitation to perform at Carnegie Hall so congratulations to our students and Mrs scall for this outstanding accomplishment and very exciting news that our voice Ensemble will be sharing their annual holiday cheer at Chester Elementary School this Friday
096carolling through classrooms which has been a tradition at CES uh which the CES family of students and staff look forward to each year so that's pretty exciting for this Friday morning and as we approach the new year uh as Mrs LOF just mentioned with the numerous staff and support of our programs in special education we would publicly like to express our sincere appreciation to the teachers staff administrative team who continue to take on challenges that expand opportunities for our students through the lens of continuous Improvement and you saw several examples of that this evening from the programs we are piloting in support of the next gen standards and all of the work behind the scenes on course descriptions and vertical alignment to Career Connections that provide meaning in learning to our students in real world
097application to continual efforts to improve academic opportunities that support Challenge and engage our students as well as varied extracurriculars that to quote our Board of Education First District goal promote an environment that prioritizes diversity equity and inclusion where every individual feels safe valued respected and empowered to achieve their Highest Potential with regard to the future of our extracurricular and athletic programs we thank the Town of Chester for gifting the district the property adjacent to Chester Academy and look forward to taking next steps in exploring potential opportunities for our students in programs we will continue to update the community as Mr doosa mentioned with regard to the insurance claim on the Maple Avenue building Associated costs and the time frame on future decisions once we're able to provide that necessary information for our community to make
098an informed decision all of this work is ongoing through the support of our Board of Education and our cfsd team so as a reminder our winter break begins on Monday December 25th with students returning to school on Tuesday January 2nd we sincerely wish all of our Chester families the happiest of holidays and a healthy happy peaceful memorable fun and great new year thank you um and yes that is great news thank you to the Town of Chester for um working with us in getting that deed transfer for the property is very exciting and we're looking forward to the opportunities that that will provide to the district um before we move into our consent agenda um you did mention the um diversity equity and inclusion policy um I'd like to take an opportunity to read that
099statement and share it with uh the members of the district um because it is something that's very important um um here to us in in Chester and making sure that the needs of all of our students are being recognized and met um so being adopted tonight in our consent agenda is our Dei policy statement which reads the Chester Union Free School District is committed to providing a safe and welcoming learning environment for all students staff and families we strive to ensure all students have equal a access to opportunities that contribute to their success we actively work to support the academic social and emotional development of our students we commit to cultivating an environment where individuals are empathetic towards one another seeking to understand and appreciate different perspectives we aim to build connections build Bridge divides
100and promote collaboration among students staff and families we believe that every voice matters and seek to create an inclusive environment where everyone's ideas opinions and experiences are heard respected and considered we believe the diversity of our backgrounds experiences and perspectives enriches our school Community promotes Innovation and strengthens our ability to achieve our goals through these commitments we aim to foster a culture that Embraces inclusivity inclusivity as a fundamental value driving innovation collaboration and excellence in education I think that's a great summary of what every place should look like and to be able to say that we are bringing that to every student every educator every faculty and staff member every family is is Meaningful um so I am I'm very pleased that this is an addition that we'll be adding to our our policy hand
101hand book um after tonight's meeting um now we'll move down to the other end of the table amanii do you have anything to share with us tonight great job earlier by the way thank you um I don't have much to share tonight just again how beneficial the student panel was not only to the sixth graders and the parents but also to us as seniors cuz um we had the ability to learn from each other as well as the methods that we were giving to the kids something that we can take away and need it as a reminder with us going away to college soon as well so it's all really beneficial but yeah I just want to wish you all happy holidays thank you and the same to you and of course all of your
102classmates um is there anything else for Round Table I just wanted to give a quick update on Orange County School Board uh so the last meeting took place on December 6th which unfortunately overlapped with our board meeting uh but but a summary of that meeting was forwarded by Karen Meyer and provided a very detailed overview of the meeting with uh Dr Fidel from the Pleasantville School District who presented on the benefits and challenges of using uh artificial intelligence in schools um the email that I forwarded to the board this morning did also include a draft policy for artificial intelligence that they asked us just to review and consider um the next meeting is scheduled for January 10th which unfortunately again conflicts with our board meeting um but that meeting is set to be virtual so
103I did email uh Karen Meyer just to ask if there's a way they could maybe consider recording so that we could watch it at a later time um if not the summaries that they provide are are nice but they don't really they're not the same as being there in part of the conversation unfortunately so um yeah that's it thank you anything else from Round Table all right then that will bring us to our consent agenda I'd like to make a motion to approve consent agenda 5.1 through 5.13 second uh all in favor I I um I'm sorry if if we can revote on that um before we um take the vote item 5.2 and 5.3 which are the policy additions the Dei policy and the mandatory workplace violence prevention policy um I'd like to ask
104the board to wave the second reading and approve them tonight I'll make that motion I'll second all in favor I thank you all right that will bring us to our second public comment section and since the audience has not grown um that will bring us to our adjournment tonight um thank you to everyone who um tuned in tonight or will be re rewatching the uh board meeting at a later date we wish all of you on behalf of the Board of Education um a very happy holiday season and we look forward to seeing everyone refreshed and renewed as we return in 2024 and that note make a motion to adjourn a second all in favor I all right happy holidays everyone Picture Time picture time