001to advise members of the audience that they may address report recording agenda items at the superintendent report only those members whose names and addresses are listed on the sign-in sheet available part of the startup meeting will be recognized during new business the chairperson will limit discussion of any item by the chair by the public to three minutes in order for the board to expeditiously conduct its business um the superintendent's report mr dolan [Music] thank you matt thank you can you guys see me man it's okay um my report tonight has taken a bit of a change um uh and you know in july we're going to be speaking about our celebrations and we'll be bringing our valedictorian and south sudan and hopefully we'll be having to go for the high school um so it's come
002to my attention that there are some folks out there that are frustrated and uh are looking to come to school without masks now the confusion has been created by um the governor's office and his change from following the guidelines of and working within the state state department of health and suffolk county department of health and the cpc now i can't speak for the governor but this change at this hour at this late hour has caused a great deal of concern consternation um and most people don't realize this but every year i put my hand up and say that i'm going to support the liberalized mandates directives of the state of new york education department look the cdc guidelines state very clearly that if you're vaccinated you're in public they're gonna they're gonna loosen their mass
003constrictions and also says very clearly that i don't i don't think this is i don't think this mic is working oh check check [Music] check check this is gonna be some show now i got until about 9 30 so this one we gotta go out into the crowd too check one well it's good yeah can you hear it it's not working is it working early don't turn buttons oh that's me getting frustrated check one check one no like i said we still got an hour and 20 minutes check one check one yep yep you're good can you see what's wrong if i stand if i'm closer to that can they hear me yeah right so i have to stand here no you can't stand all right what i started to say was the cdc came
004out with a mandate back up a little bit more down i can't see you there we go all right better if they can't see me from the neck up that'd be better the cdc has stated that if you're vaccinated and i stress if you're vaccinated you probably don't have to wear masks in public places now but it also says in schools public transportation medical facilities like hospitals you still have to wear a mask um look we we respect everybody's opinion but to openly advocate to come to school without a mask right now is not going to help the situation now we are looking at and we have been very clear that we look to we're moving forward we got back into school by giving people choices giving people options and giving people a chance to
005get comfortable and we're going to continue to do that but i'm going to say this very clearly we must continue to wear our masks to school we understand it's it's getting warmer we are going to make a couple of small changes tonight the first one is we're going to discontinue taking the temperatures we don't have to continue to take the temperatures and quite honestly we trust our parents please don't send your child to school with a thermometer but we're going to move in that direction last friday we were very clear the op shields at the secondary level are now optional the students that feel comfortable and the the adults the teachers and the staff who want to use shields are using them and those who don't aren't we were going to do that at the
006elementary level but and i give our elementary staff a lot of credit they're beginning to look at things and things like turning the kids to face each other which is a very healthy thing but we are working with the department of health and i really feel for the suffolk county department of health who've been wonderful the whole time with us uh they're they're somewhat i don't want to use the word confused but they've had to rub pulled out from under them um but we said last friday that we are reevaluating the elementaries we have asked the principals to talk to their people uh we're going to meet with the principals and we are going to make adjustments at the elementary level we are looking at the possibility of when the children are outside can masks
007be optional we are evaluating the shields but i trust the folks that work in the buildings with the children and we want to keep everybody safe because i still get the painful phone calls from parents when we do have to quarantine students it's a hardship it's a hardship for the child that misses school it's a hardship for family and it's also a hardship for the teachers and folks in the building who want the kids there learning with them now look we understand that this is difficult if your child needs a mass break i have yet to see an adult that did not figure out a way to get that child to take a mass break i've been very proud of all we've done this has been an on you know an unbelievable ride you know
008i've been saying this all along this cpr to this pcr test got to spell it right perseverance courage and resiliency we've managed in a town that's full of passion a town that's full of people that care a town that's full of people who have very strong opinions and quite frankly i appreciate how you offer all that advice to me too um we've managed to stay together as a superintendent of schools if a group decides that they're not going to wear mass to school i am going to have to side with the state authorities we don't want to lose days we don't want to have to go fully virtual but right now is not the time for civil disobedience it's a time for us to stay united and work together we truly believe that the governor
009has said by july 4th beaches and pools are going to be 100 open working backwards we're looking at graduation which is only a week before that and the way things are changing we're hoping to have a graduation ceremony where at least the class and the parents can be or uh you know the significant adults in our children's lives can be there um field day we said to you two months ago we were going to have field day before most schools said that we also said to you that we'll know by june 1st if we can have guests at field day i'm feeling very comfortable now that we're seeing more and more people outside we're seeing more and more people attending games that we can come up with a plan so we can do this safely
010but we're asking you you know when they wrote the constitution your rights end at the end of your nose the other person's rights begin when you start to come together i have seen cases where best friends have not agreed on this all we ask is to be a be patient a little bit longer stay calm and this is i i do not believe this is a battle that we want to rip the community apart over and rest assured again as superintendent of schools i took an oath and you know i joke around a lot but there's nothing i like more right now than being well besides being a husband and a father than being your superintendent of schools and i'm not going to jeopardize that because i understand you're frustrated and i understand that um
011this is not easy it hasn't been easy for any of us for every person out there that calls me and says you know i don't want to wear this mask anymore i don't want my child wearing this mask anymore i get a phone call from someone that says i don't want to get my grandmother sick i'm going to end this with a story that i told you way back when this all way back in the end of august i met two ladies out by the track last summer and the woman said she really berated me we want to go to school no masks no social distancing none of that we should just be free to do what we want and i came back up to the office and i said to my secretary joanne put
012two in the we want to just go back category and not an hour later i got a phone call from the woman who stood next to her nodding her head like this who said mr dolan she's my best friend and i love her but i don't agree with her and i don't want to fight with her anymore and that's when i knew we were going to have our hands full but we talk a lot about ei pride we talk a lot about ei pride and what it is and it starts with east islip united it starts with east islip whether we agree or disagree sticking together the facts are the facts the cdc says you have to wear a mask in school the governor has chosen to follow the cd cdc now and not the
013local government we must wear the masks in school but we are willing to work with our local officials um and like i said working backwards we were the first we were the first school on long island last year to say we were going to have a live graduation and we did it and we did it because of the people behind me and the people in front of me on the camera and in the room we have said from the beginning we're going to have field day and it's coming we're going to have field day and we are going to have guests at field day we just have to make sure we have a safe plan so that everybody feels comfortable and sometimes for everybody to feel comfortable we all have to accept a little bit
014of discomfort you know this country was founded on compromise this kind this found this country was not founded by us by people telling us what we have to do it was founded by people listening to each other and compromising um you know i hope that you folks get on facebook or whatever you do because i don't have facebook and just ask we're asking you for a little more patience and we did say it to you last friday we will have a plan the plan is going to move us closer to normal all right and we're going to do our best because we know it's getting a little harder to give the kids the opportunities to get outside and breathe outside together that's about as simple as it gets but again please do not put us
015in a situation that we would be forced to do something that quite frankly none of us want to do i'll be more than happy to listen to you i'll be here all day tomorrow i'll be here all day thursday i'll be here all day friday for those of you that are really mad at me write this number down six three one three one two zero six two zero send me a tweet and not tweet send me a text whatever they want and i'll be happy to talk to each and every one of you but the bottom line is ei pride starts with ei united e.i pride starts with the respect that we have for each other and this group here to my left to my right this board of education oh trust me we don't
016always agree but they respect each other in fact from their disagreements we have we have done okay and we will continue to do okay but we really really need your support on this one please do not put your children in the middle of your political struggles if you don't want your kids to wear a mask bombard the governor's office you don't want your child to wear a mask you got to bombard your elected officials do not put your children in the middle of this and if you send a child to school without a mask knowingly what you're doing is using your child as a pawn to to to promote your political agenda so i'm asking you i'm asking you nicely if you want me to beg i will again if you want to talk to
017me directly just text me at 631-312-0620 but please do not put your children in the middle of this all right and can allow us to can you continue to work with our health officials and our elected officials and if you really don't like it you must go to the people who are making the rules don't take it out on the group here which our job when we raise our hand board of education to myself raise our hand every year and swear to uphold those rules do not put us in that position because this district is bigger and more important than anything and again ei pride starts with e.i united thank you very much have a good night public comment on agenda items only do you have any comments so move on to um section nine
018for pursuant to education law section 913 then a member of the non-instruction staff whose identity is known to the board of education is hereby directed to report for an examination in order to determine the capacity of such person to perform set employees duties with the east isobu new free school district set examination will be conducted by dr randall solomon on friday june 25th at 12 noon at dr solomon's office 55 wisconsin highway suite one port jefferson station new york 11776 paid a motion motion second discussion on favorite certified employee resignation be resolved that the board of education of the east executive free school district accepts the resignation dated may 14 2021 with from a certified employee whose identification is known to the board of education such resignation effective june 25th 2021. get a motion the
019board of education approves the resignation determinations leave of absence position abolition employment appointments tenure appointments and salary changes in accordance with applicable provision of education one civil service law as cited on the certified personnel attachments get a motion motion discussion all all right at this time i'd like uh crystal leg my cancer and mike leguelos please i don't think we have any other new ones um this this is the part of the program that i really like ladies and gentlemen michael turn around face the crap no no michael aguelo michael's going to be teaching english at the high school michael michael light turn around mike is going to be the new assistant principal and chris did turn around chris is andrew director of special ed um a nice round of applause [Applause] it really is
020a great place and i ask you all this in in the interviews i want to be at your retirement party and all i want to hear from the parents who show up your colleagues who show up the community members who show up is that you just gave it everything you had the three of you were hired you went through the committee system the three of you were hired because those committees felt that you could come here and and just make these yeah and bring a little something to east iceland there's a tremendous amount of tradition here we have a tremendous amount of pride here but each one of you if you just come here give it a 100 every day i like i said i'll be very proud to be at your retirement party and
021just hear people say boy they were good people who gave it their best and they really really cared about kids so welcome to the family everybody you can employ together the board of education approves the resignation termination leave of absence physician abolition employment appointments turn your appointments and salary changes and in courts with applicable provisions of education law and civil service law as cited in the non-certified personnel attachment in a motion second discussion uh number uh mr president 11 and 12. okay so numbers one through ten all in favor all right numbers 11 and 12 all in favor all right no all right thank you our consent agenda are there any items on the consent agenda that anyone would like to remember not actually not stipulated one yeah okay um so the consent agenda passes
022through 9.17 9.20 right yeah yeah okay uh okay 918. okay and then um old business so we're gonna actually at this point we're going to cover old business new business and then we're going to adjourn to it exact for a couple of matters we weren't able to discuss prior to the meeting and then we'll come back to for the budget results and um or trusty uh election results so um for anybody that would like to stay the old business anyone well i didn't know that mr dolan and i have best friends but she said the best friends also often disagreed well you did you said that up there it's an exception to everybody i you know as everyone knows since august i've been on the side of the least restrictive option we could take but
023uh although this is a bitter pill to swallow it is like mr dolan said that for right now for the next few days while we figure out how we can proceed i know i would like to although hard for me to say i would like to agree with mr dolan that we need to uh just give us some time to work this out um and uh it's better to stay united and let the kids go to school and and we are making adjustments and mr dawn and i have discussions heated discussions every day about these issues so we are moving in the right direction it's just taking some time and we do have we do have um i guess constraints on us as a board of education so we do disagree but i agree that
024we have to give it more time so i'm kind of agreeing with you so does it make those best friends again go back and go back all right we're back what do you think mrs jackman sounds like a great plan can we just recap as far as that sounds so we're not we're going to stop taking temperatures uh at the entrances is that correct and then as far as recess is that effective tomorrow it's optional or are you going to make an announcement again we need a couple more days because i have a meeting tomorrow that we'll finalize everything by thursday make the announcement friday and we'll look to move into next week and then uh you know as we move past memorial day again we anticipate now do we know if they can hear
025us out there i'm not talking about you guys in the room but can they hear us at home all right um you know it's again i i there are certain things i never want to say again but it's a it's a fluid situation and i will say this i think that the board has been very good about supporting and getting our kids back in as quickly as possible um and so again all we said last friday we really need another 72 hours to to see what what the governor first of all the governor has to make a statement tomorrow but proactively we knew he was going to make a statement so we've we have our people out there working on a plan and then we'll announce that friday afternoon and be ready to go one
026day and the shields in the elementary that's being evaluated as well yeah it's tricky and we're trying to get some guidance from the department of health because look i i would love to just take them down but if we take you know i've been saying this to people what's better for kids to have be able to have a shield and be in a cluster of four facing each other so you can now see each other again or take the shields down just go into rows and again we need a little bit of time to discuss that you know and i just want to question everybody there are school districts that are not even talking about this there are school districts that have not gone back there are school districts that are still hybrid you know
027um i i i commend everybody it was a great job uh moving away from virtual and quite honestly we do have you know a a certain group of people that have legitimate medical concerns and we were respectful of them but we were able to work all of us working together the teachers the staff the administrators we were able to get everyone back into school except for those who have legitimate medical concerns so that was i think that was a huge accomplishment and we will continue on this road um and again i've said it before it's very hard to keep us together some people want to run ahead some people are a little bit walking more cautiously but i'll be gone we're going to stick together and that that's that's why we just need you know
028it's going to be wednesday by friday afternoon we will have something for everybody to uh you know hopefully it'll make everybody a little bit happy and a little bit angry and then we've found a good compromise thank you any other old business i actually just want to film something we discussed it at the the last meeting uh regarding spring uh sports tryouts and it was reviewed there were some changes that were made um uh relative to the jv and varsity um sports teams for spring and happily those teams are competing and there's a lot of happy faces on the fields we had some great music programs we had another award program this morning we have prom coming up just to be clear because a community member disparaged me saying that it was my decision to
029put a tent on the hockey rink um that was not my decision that was a collective decision by the planning members of the school district the only aspect that i was a part of it was you know to be informed this was the plan and we voted to approve the expenditure uh it absolutely was not my decision so i just wanted to make that clear we are very happy that our students are going to be able to have a junior prom a senior permanent other awards the video that you put on the website was terrific uh mr dawn um my only my only negative comment after all that of course the personal attack was a bit off-putting but um is the uh conflict of interest so we have a conflict of interest policy that i
030asked if we could review it i know legal is taking that into consideration we're going to have a discussion about change of um the wording and to make sure that it is universal universities that way it affects administrators board members and staff so if they have any kind of conflict business or personal that that will be addressed by their supervisors so i just want to make it clear because it seems that it's been a blind eye it's been turned a number of times to present complex districts and um i think that that should change so but that's just my opinion and i think that as a board we'll make a decision on hopefully changing that uh that policy going forward and if there's any no other old business we'll move sure absolutely you know mrs
031connie just um spurred something in my mind my point of view the blind eye wasn't turned it was all the superintendent didn't see something that was right in front of the space so uh you know i think we're going to take a good hard look at that but on a positive note and i know mr mesquite i can't see you um but we've had we've had a couple of really nice concerts we had it down at jfk and rck and this is where before i had to talk about masks which by the way in case i wasn't clear we still have to wear masks in school um we uh i've had the opportunity we went to concerts at jfk and rck and they were absolutely beautiful outside the breakfast of champions was our first event
032under the tent and remember we rented a tent because we did not want to have to split our class at the prom there are districts that are you know going and having two and three proms so that their kids can have an experience but they won't be with their whole class breakfast as champions was it was it was wonderful this morning sun's coming up it was beautiful but last night for those of you that weren't there and we had uh we had a concert the first concert was last week and again last night but the interesting thing last night was there was a girls lacrosse game on what used to be called the football field and we only played on that five times a year and we had a girls lacrosse game going on while
033the concert was going on and the beauty was standing here and seeing the girls running up and down the field with the music playing it almost looked like a beautiful ballet and that's what we know east islip is we try to offer opportunities for all our kids i loved it the other day when two girls came in their softball uniforms their faces still painted and they were dirty they jumped in grabbed their flutes and they started to play that's what school is all about creating opportunities for kids we do not want to put the kids in the middle of our political fights i'm going to reiterate it we have to wear masks in school because that's what the rules are but i can't wait i would love to say and i'm i'm not going to
034give mr nesca a heart attack here because there's so many logistical worries about doing it but watching the music teachers put on the concerts at jfk rck and then out there on the field at the high school was absolutely awe-inspiring it was a beautiful night and again it was like poetry in motion and watching kids side by side doing what they love and and the one part of what i loved we had we had about a half a dozen graduates who came to hit softballs they realized they couldn't do it but i watched them they hung around a little while and enjoyed the music to see the little kids on bikes in the playground down at uh jfk to see kids on bikes at rck a couple of them told me they had never been
035to a concert before and they liked it there's an awful lot of good here so please please please remember that and that's where we're going that's how we're coming back that's what's going to make us great again that's what ei pride's all about and please again just remember hang in there we need to wear the masks a little bit longer thank you thank you mr dolan any other any new business i have had some new business okay yes and i know people are not gonna you know um the state education department is considering a course critical race theory is that going to be a mandatory course for every school district i am not aware of a mandatory course it's not mandatory now they're talking about it and they're all proceeding ahead with this i just
036want to know has any school district been informed of a potential uh critical race theory course nothing i'm aware of so the state has not come out with anything yet all right okay good also on the play area at the elementary schools you were thinking about having the kids go out without a mask is that correct yes or no i don't want to i was going to give you yes or no now you're going to get more no you did it to yourself all right that's that's it that's all i have yes i got more any other new business no okay so if i can get a motion to a journal executive session oh god all right thank you we'll resume when we get the hundred results thank you