ERCSD - Public Hearing & Regular Board Meeting 07-06-2022

001i call this meeting to order please stand for the pledge of allegiance i pledge of the allegiance states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice [Music] hey [Music] bye [Music] [Applause] for anyone who's not familiar with me i'm the district clerk for east ramapo and the reason i'm starting the meeting tonight is we have to elect the board has to elect a president at which point when we have a president they will take over chairing the meeting the fire safety notice fire exits are located at the front of the boardroom and at the sides of the boardroom in the event of a fire you will hear a fire alarm at that time please move in a calm and orderly fashion to the nearest

002exit thank you i will just note for the record that mr gruber our newest board member came and took his oath with me this afternoon so he does not need to take an oath tonight i would ask that miss charles pierre and mr weissmandel the re-elected board members if you would come and take your oath with me now so if if you can repeat after me i state your name do solemnly swear firm that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of trustee of the east ramapo central school district board of education according to the best of my ability i'll get you to sign the oath now and dr ellis if you could come and do

003your oath please if you can repeat after me i dr clarence g ellis do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of superintendent of schools of east ramapo central school district according to the best of my ability congratulations if you could sign please i now open nominations for the board president position are there any nominations i nominate mr rose i'm sorry i didn't hear that mr rose i nominate sherry mcgill are there any other nominations any other nominations hearing none i will call for a vote all those in favor of mr rose if you would raise your hand leave your hands up until i record your

004vote thank you i have mr berkowitz mr grossman mr gruber mr coth mr rose and mr weiss mandel is that correct and i will call all those who vote for mrs mcgill please put your hand up and so i have miss lavelle and mrs mcgill is that correct okay say those names one more time please couldn't hear you okay i have for mrs mcgill a vote by miss lavelle and by mrs mcgill is that correct okay so by a vote of six to two miss charles pierre did you abstain from the vote okay by a vote of six to two mr rose is the president it's okay so mr rose if you can come over and do an oath with me you can repeat after me i shim and rose do solemnly affirm that i

005will support the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of new york and then i will faithfully discharge the duties of president of the board of education of the east ramapo central school district according to the best of my ability congratulations if you could sign it bless you president rose will uh just move to the seat next to dr ellis and once he's settled he will continue running the meeting i was about to say you're bumping me from my seat we need another mic it's cool but we can't because another mike yes [Music] i got a little nicer i would have answered the script good evening everyone my name is shimon rose before we start i would like to thank my fellow board members and colleagues for nominating me as president

006i take this very seriously and my goal is to ensure that every single child in this district receives the education that he deserves and i'm looking forward to working together with everybody and ensuring that goal our first order of business is to nominate our vice president i would like to nominate sabrina charles pierre as vice president i would like to nominate sherry mcgill as vice president she's experienced and we have a new president i think that we should have a new vice president as well okay okay kathy we have two nominations we usually call three times for nominations before we close them i'm sorry usually we call three times for nominations is there any other nominations cherry magoo okay hearing none would you like me to call the vote for you um we need a

007second i'll second ashley level i'll second sabrina oh you got a second you can't second sabrina are we doing a roll call first yep i will die so we have uh two candidates um all those in favor of sabrina charles pierre if you can put your hand up and leave it up till i get it recorded please okay i have uh mr berkowitz mr grossman mr gruber mr coth mr rose and mr weiss mandel is that correct okay and all those in favor of mrs mcgill if you could put your hand up and leave it up okay i have uh miss lavelle and mrs mcgill did i miss anyone i could put my other hand up miss charles pierre you're abstaining so by a vote of six to two miss uh sabrina charles pierre is

008the vice president if you could come and do the oath with me please repeat after me i sabrina charles pierre do solemnly swear that i will support the constitution of the united states of america and the constitution of the state of new york and that i will faithfully discharge the duties of vice president of the board of education of the east ramapo central school district according to the best of my abilities congratulations mr rose i just let you know and and everyone that i uh my oath was administered yesterday by our notary public miss pasero so there you don't need to uh do the oath for me tonight you can just we can just move on to appointment of officers of the board okay okay appointment officers to the board item d do i hear

009a motion to appoint mr nigerian as district treasurer for the period of july 1st 2022 to june 30th 2023 with a stipend of 22 602 i'm i'm going to correct you we the first and you have a choice you can either do each one separately or you can do a motion to do all of d as one motion it's it's up to you still getting used to this um okay do i hear a motion for item d number one and number two item one being appoint cathy kiwi as our district clerk thank you so much second bye mandel mr carth thank you any discussion on the on these two items hearing no discussion i'd like to take a vote all in favor say aye aye when we want to oppose abstain hearing non-motion passes welcome

010back kathy yes welcome back kathy item e appointment of board committees um kathy do we have the list from last year and everyone i guess would say if they'd like to continue serving on the committee anyone wants to be added i believe correct so the district athletic committee last year was mr weiss mandel miss charles pierre mrs mcgill and mr rose which voice mendel this is the district athletic major wise mandel well we only have one now so i don't need initials you're not including it was me it was me it was it was mr ewi spandel i i will uh i can continue to do that yes ms charles pierre mrs mcgill yes and mr rose yes okay the audit committee is always chaired by the president so that would be mr rose and

011all board members belong to that committee it's a committee of the whole the district curriculum committee mr berkowitz ms lavelle yes mrs mcgill yes and i should ask if there's anyone else who wants to be on one of these committees to just speak up any of the new board members would want to join any of the committees don't be afraid to speak up okay or any other members of that matter and and for any board member if you decide following tonight's meeting we can always the board can always appoint you later on also moving on district facilities committee miss charles pierre i'd like to join that too okay okay i added mr berkowitz mr e weiss mandel anyone else for facilities yes i would join that sherry mcgill okay district wellness committee was mr e

012weiss mandel [Music] no all right miss lavell yes anyone else who would like to be on district wellness committee okay medicaid compliance committee last year was mr y weissmandel only is there anyone with interest for that committee which one medicaid compliance okay we can come back to that at a subsequent meeting the district policy committee mr grossman miss charles pierre yes anyone else yes i'd like to join and cherie mcgill would like to join as well i'd like to join the district policy committee as well please it's fine so mr rose you said to you also yes i'd like okay all right technology committee mr grossman ms charles pierre yes mr sorry rose one was this uh technology i don't think yes yes it's not on the agenda that technology is not on the agenda

013under committees sorry technology is not on the agenda under committees um it's okay i have it on my list i will get it get it added uh trans anyone else for technology before we move on okay transportation committee we had mr grossman yes i like to join that one mr charles pierre oh sorry kathy yes that also needs to be added to the agenda i've got it on my list sorry uh and last year was also mr weiss so did something mr gruber would like to kathy i would also like to join sherry miguel and i said i did too we have we now have five people on a committee that generally is uh all right take me off the committee okay just we have a quorum we can't have a quorum of a member

014of the board on on a committee otherwise then it's it's okay i defer to you guys whoever is it which committee are we talking about transportation miss lavell you said you would drop her yeah because there's another one i want to be on thank you all right a representative and an alternate for the teacher center policy board last year was mr berkowitz as a representative and miss lavelle was the alternative okay a representative to the rockland county school boards association it was mr grossman as representative and miss charles pierre as alternate yes okay building visitation committee mr berkowitz mrs labelle yes please mrs mcgill yes and meet mr e weiss mandel okay i'm sorry what was the name of that committee that was uh building visitation okay all of that will be added for the

015minutes on this agenda are there four ready yeah okay and are there four already on this committee do we have four on this committee already or there are four on the building visitation uh mr berkowitz miss lavalle mrs mcgill and mr e weiss mandel uh diversity equity and inclusion committee was miss charles pierre yes i like to be on that too please okay anyone else like to be on the division diversity equity and inclusion committee i'll join them and um i'll call one more time for medicaid compliance if not i'll just ask any board members who might decide following the meeting to let me know for the next agenda uh i'll join okay i'll also join yeah it's a really important committee all right so i for medicaid compliance i have ms lavelle and mr

016koth thank you so mr rose [Music] you can do one motion to appoint approve the appointments to the board committees as read out loud okay i'd like to make a so am i making a motion i'd like to make a motion to appoint all the above members board members to their respective committees i'll make the motion sorry i'll make the motion you're seconding miss lavell yes second oh oh oh second i missed the bell i'll get it second by ms lavelle any discussion on the matter hearing no i'll take a vote all of them in favor say aye aye aye anybody oppose abstained motion carries moving on to other appointments item f um i know the loading i'd like to make do i hear a motion for 1 through 12 or we're going to go

017through [Music] can we can we do this all together f1 through 12. any opposition to that [Music] uh yes do you want me to make the motion or we did that already are we making a motion for total you want to go separately uh we could do separately okay motion moved by miss laville to go separate but you're a second i'll second mr grossman all the favors say i i was opposed abstain motion carries so we can do this one by one item f number one motion to appoint harry's speech as general counsel to serve at the pleasure of the board beginning as for the letter of engagement dated may 18 2022 i'll make a motion on each one to make the motion or if that's what the board chooses the board can do all

018of f in one motion or do them separately but i think you just had a motion to do them separately is there anything specific one you want to point out maybe we could group a couple together or is there anything specific you wanna i just discuss and we can keep that out and do the rest of it together no i'm just gonna vote no for number one okay and the rest of you okay okay so let's do one separate then we'll do two through 12. is everybody okay with that yes you want to do two separately as well two through twelve together and we'll do one separately okay i agree with that okay item number one right here motion for item number one move by mrs mr carth second by mr weiss model any discussion

019on the matter no discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye aye anyone opposed or abstain no no winnipeg as well okay so that's a no by miss leville no by sabrina miss charles pierre and no by miss mcgill motion carries okay just to clarify that was uh a no vote from uh miss lavelle miss charles pierre and mrs mcgill correct that's what i heard did i miss i heard correctly okay now you got it right moving on to number two to number fifteen do i hear a motion for number two and number fifteen i'm moved by mr berkowitz second by second second by mr weissmandel and a discussion on the items and these are items two through twelve these are items two through twelve yes oh yes uh just question for number five

020i believe is that the same one we had uh last year the ef pr group no um they were they were bit out professional services were bid out and they were awarded okay so this was the lowest of whatever or we receive from the rfp um we went over this in a prior meeting so i don't have the data to support that answer but it was properly bid and the um our current external auditors are our sabrams who were awarded as our internal auditor so naturally we had to go with the next right got it okay we have a motion and a second on the table any more discussion on the items two through 12. no hearing none all those in favor say aye aye aye anyone opposed abstained motion carries moving on to item

021to g designations is everyone okay if we group this together one two three yes okay uh do i have a motion for items one two three i will make the motion motion by miss leville second bye second by miguel i'm sorry second by miss mcgill any discussion on these items hearing none all those in favor say aye aye anyone opposed abstain motion carries authorizations that's number h is that anybody have one specific item they'd like to single out or can we do this in a group i guess we're doing it in a group do i have a motion for items one through five from letter h moved move by mr grossman second by second second by miss mcgill although any discussion on these items no hearing none all those in favor say aye aye anyone

022opposed abstain motion carries up to insurance coverage i do i hear a motion for to provide insurance coverage against crime by all district employees and non-compensated officers motion motion by moved by mr berkowitz second second by mr group mr gruber any discussion on the items no hearing none all those in favor say aye aye anyone opposed abstained motion carries up to jay other items i'm going to ask the same questions as previously if there's any specific item you'd like for us to take out and vote separately okay so i guess we'll group them together one through six i'll make a motion for items one through six do i hear a second second second by mr weiss mandel any discussion on the items hearing none all those in favor say aye aye aye i don't want

023to pose abstain motion carries okay i'd like to make a motion for german just emotional we do have the regular meeting coming up right after this this is just to conclude the organization meeting um before i conclude i would like to welcome our newest board member mr gruber welcome that being said i'd like to make a motion to adjourn the organization meeting i'll make the motion ashley promotion by miss lavelle i'll second all those of any discussion on the items all those in favor say aye aye anyone oppose abstain motion carries we take a little recess okay i'd like to bring this meeting to order public safety announcement fire exits are located at the front of the boardroom and the side of the boardroom this might be repetitive i'm just doing it again in the

024event of a fire you'll hear a fire alarm at that time please move in a calm and orderly fashion to the nearest exit okay so like to bring up a motion for mo for number b we're going to hear the school district district-wide safety plan then there will be public comment on only on the safety plan and then we will adjourn that part of the safety meeting and then we will continue with the regular meeting so again the public comment will be only regarding the school district while it's school safety plan so do i hear a motion for items one two three that includes the present oh i'm sorry go ahead all right first of all congratulations president madam vice president this is why i say the plan is updated every year unfortunately some titles

025were picked out on my own typist uh the plans are designed to handle any emergency or be adapted to any emergency a perfect example is what happened friday at grandview we had a garbage truck ripped down our phone lines power down our power lines by the phone lines computer lines into the building and caused structural damage by following those plans it gave us step by step on what to do this occurred at 1 15 by 6 o'clock friday afternoon on a holiday weekend we had the building secured we had the cables back in place no interruption to the internet and we had all the other equipment restored so these plans are submitted every year to uh to the board to be proved to be submitted to the state to build the district i sent the

026district the building level emergency plans those have to be reviewed and accepted in executive session because they are building specific to every building cannot be discussed in the public but the district-wide safety plan can be discussed we take the dis-wise safety plan we we make it even finer for each building so each building will have their own response plan and we conduct training throughout the year the summer camps the summer schools that we have right now i'm doing the first safety briefing tomorrow morning and every day for the next two weeks we're doing safety briefings and safety drills following those plans so uh any does the board have any questions about the plans just to clarification mr carter you said the building um there's something that we need to review in executive session because we

027can't talk about the other school school it's the building level emergency plan those are confidential and they cannot be discussed in public so i want to share the police departments okay my only okay i don't have i think my question is okay well no not really a question so i guess according to the schools that's how it's according to the school's needs that's how each school will carry out correct the plan that they see fit okay that's no problem that's it will the safety drills be done with the students during um their summer program as well yes next week tomorrow tomorrow and monday i think it's just professional development for the staff then we do the actual drills with the students when they when they start yes okay how often do we have drills in

028schools we have eight fire drills and four lockdown drills a year 85 eight fire alarms eight fire drills and four lockdown drills a year that's required by state law some schools we do a little extra these are done randomly or uh the provided the principal picks the date i i sit with the principal we say okay that's a good day we do it the first uh fire drill the first lockdown drill is always announced the rest are not announced because we want you to react as you would in a real emergency are lockdown drills done during summer as well we're doing lockdown drills for the summer schools yes we do i believe one per uh per location mr carton i know that you said four is required do you um i mean like i guess

029i i personally feel like is it possible that we could do more than four you always have more four okay because i know that you know some of the schools like to do extra but i guess like can we go up that um can we go up that um i'd be very happy to exceed the uh number four uh yeah i think that going into this new school year and just trying to be proactive especially with the safety i think that we should go up i'll meet with the prisoners and uh we'll set up a schedule and usually for a lockdown drill i take them so serious i'll reschedule anything i'm doing that day to go to the drills okay no problem mr carton can you just explain to the community what a lockdown drill

030looks like like the procedure right now we're coming out of covent we had a modified lockdown drill according to cdc guidelines and new york state education health department when we do a lockdown drill you'll hear on the drill three times this is a drill this is a drill this is a drill lock down lock down lock down this is a drill by saying that everybody realizes it's just a drill they start hiding the students turning off the lights and getting ready to file the next orders what would then once the students are secured and the doors are secured myself and the administrators go around checking each door to make sure the door is secured we don't see anybody we don't hear anything there's no teaching going on first one we're kind of leaning in on

031but throughout the year we get uh different tougher and tougher on them so this way everybody realizes realizes the effect that these have and how important they are are brush drills included in the safety plan yes we do one emergency bus drill every year per uh school one a year we sometimes do two or three more okay with the transportation issues the last year or two we didn't do extras we always did one but we try to do two or three uh a year per school the results of a drill is being shared by the is that being documented uh just the fact that we have something i'm sorry we have to maintain a list of how many drills we have we don't say so and so left door open we're not here to embarrass

032anybody but we want anybody to take it serious we'll record uh june july 8 2022 at 9 30 in the morning we had a drill at such and such a location anything to take like anything needs to improve or anything to take out of the drill what we do is when we sit with the administration we review what the weaknesses were what the strengths were and we go over it and we don't single out anybody in particular but we sent it to the school to all the uh faculty that these were the things that we observed that we need to improve are the buildings being graded if how they pass or it's a pass or fail or there's no phrase there's no just fail it's just corrections right we just correct any violations or any

033uh anything any deficiencies that we observe does anybody on the board still have any more questions mr carton okay so i'd like to make a motion to open up public comment on the school safety plan and on the school safety plan only we'll have a separate motion for a regular meeting for public comment i'll make the motion motion by ms leville second second bye miss mrs mcgill miss mcgill i'm sorry i'm getting mixed up here any discussion on the motion all those a favor all right anyone opposed abstain motion carries speaker number one i have some questions the first one will i have will have two parts will this year's safety plan include active shooter drills bus drills lockdown drills multiple times and will this include local polices i don't i don't want want what

034happened in you valid to happen to us will this include a conversation with a professional therapist at the end of each will will all the schools have fences around the property yes or no and why [Applause] okay mr cotton yeah if you'd like to answer okay uh the active shooter drills students will we're going to try to decide we're going to have the students involved there we're doing active shooter drills with the local police coming in and training the staff i don't know if the students should be around when there's blank gunfire being being fired i don't want to traumatize any students but it's more for the staff and how to react the other question was bus drills i think i discussed that earlier and was it fences around the property okay that's going to

035be up to the feasibility of fetching off all the school properties our smallest building i think is 17 acres so there's a lot of fencing to put up i think did i answer all your questions mr carton yes i think she also included um which i think is actually a pretty neat idea including therapists or just social workers a part of that um drill well the therapist and social workers are part of the emergency response team for each building so that's included in the plans that you'll see in executive session it has each school puts down who's on their emergency response team and the therapist counselors or social workers are included thank you to go back to the fencing issue i know we had issues with the fence at spring valley high school and i

036recently noticed that the one at rampful high school looks like somebody ran it over possibly can we at least look into fixing what we do have and maintaining it we can fix the fence that grandpa i'll talk to uh mr rubin and we'll see about getting that fixed defensing spring valley we have to see if that's our offense we have to go through uh old property deeds well i think the one specifically by the tennis court okay yes i'll talk to miss ruben we can we'll uh we'll take care of that okay thank you the the main doors to the school is that the main the main doors to the school is that open constantly during the day they're locked they're locked and by the end of the summer all the doors will have access

037control where you need your id card to come in they all have all schools have now where is the helios system you press the button your image appears on the secretary of security's phone and you get buzzed in then but that system has been online for uh that's being implemented now after the summer the flight control swipe cards for the employees we just we're on back order with the id cards when stu when student arrives in the morning when you see us arrive in the morning the staff's outside to greet the students and security is outside and there will be a security guard the front door until the buses come in within 10 minutes of the bus is getting the doors are all secured i don't know if it's appropriate to ask how many guards

038security guards i don't like to comment in public on each building that's part of the building level plans is there any way to buzz anybody into the secondary doors or to open secondary doors the primary doors are the ones locked there's vestibules uh we looked into harding them where you have to go through a double buzzer system but right now it's not feasible the doors have to be replaced my question was from the fire exits if somebody from inside could open the door and someone could randomly come in the door's operable during the day unless there's an emergency all doors are secured yeah by state law fire law they have to have a push bar like the doors behind i understand that there's a push but it could be open from the inside for someone

039that's on the outside but security has to when they make the rounds they have to check all primitive doors make sure they're secured we have people who like to i could have a million dollar lock on the door a free pebble will keep that door open so we always tell the staff when we do the uh the drill the safety drills and safety lectures in september don't prop doors open that was pro proven in uh texas right my guys now i have to go around making sure the doors that they've always had to make sure the doors are secured we're looking into having buzzer systems on the doors so doors open more than 30 seconds an alarm goes off the machines that we have in the schools i know they were using it at ramp

040high school and spring valley high school there was a point towards the end of the school year where i guess moon valley high school started implementing students having to sign in yes when they're late and i think the machine they had i don't know if it wasn't working if it broke but what is the plan if for whatever reason that machine is not working because i think each school has one as of right now if the system goes down we go back to a paper as a backup but uh what happened was in spring valley we had so many people come in and slow down the system everybody was getting a case of spring fever so we had lines out the door so we started if you recall we had two tables everybody had to

041sign in now that we have the new uh time management system i'm taking those old time clocks and we're just going to punch you in as soon as you come in late you just put in your name on it that will reduce the amount of time people are standing outside and what are we doing to make sure that's implemented from when from the start of school in september throughout the school year all the secondary schools will be on the same page at beginning the school year but we're going to implement it district-wide so it can't be piecemeal here peacemaker that's one thing we have planned for the uh staff development day okay and does the elementary school also have that machine yes they have that machine too it's a visitor management system it's for the

042high schools it's linked to e-school so it cuts down on bogus names mickey mouse has come in late several times that's one of the actual names they sign in you put in your student id number and it goes right to your attendance record on e-school if i recall correctly part of the smart pond stuff was securing the doors as part of that we put the buzzers in we had the buses for the uh front doors but we have i think the last count i believe it was 130 doors throughout the whole district so we're right now just doing the uh the main doors people come in what i meant is that if a door that is supposed to be shut during the day and you expect it to be shut is opened like fire doors

043right that a buzzer goes off in the administration's for for that building yes that's that that's part of the smart school bond we're still getting the cameras installed so that's one of the final stages so that's one of the things i've been pushing for because once you open the door and the alarm goes off there's cameras in the stairwell so we can see who opened the door and we can take corrective action and prevent people from coming in so that is part of the smart school bond yes thank you you mentioned cameras is the cameras around the building or in the building the smart school bond uh secondary schools have cameras now inside and outside we're now we had a meeting today cabinet we came up with an alternative backup plan uh the cameras we

044ordered are on supply there they could be here tomorrow they could be here six months we're not sure we changed the cameras we're using we should be able to start that next week and the goal is to get all this done before school starts do they work yes it's being constantly monitored or only looking backwards uh the security desk have access to the cameras in the secondary schools they can see stuff real time but if we have to investigate then certain people have access to go back on the cameras you know mr carton do they have i know we're talking about the safety plan it just came to my mind in terms of i see a lot of cars flying through the parking lot of spring valley what's our plan with that we ordered as

045a matter of fact i saw a bus today flying through the parking lot what we did is we ordered uh plastic barriers they weigh about 30 pounds apiece they're about four feet wide we're going to put them on staggered formations at either end by the gym lot and by the flagpole so cars won't come down and we easily move them to the side let our bus is in so once our buses come in in the morning these barriers go up so nobody can use it as a cut through because nobody wants to stay at that light on kennedy and 59. so will this even be used even when i mean school might be out of session you know like and you still have extracurricular activities going on i'm talking about even this summer so will

046they still have that put in place be out there there's no reason for us to open it if there's if uh mr tomb says we have a game today i'll make sure that those barriers are moved so the buses can get in but if we don't have any game schedule or anything you know our custodians and security can move them but the idea is to be there as a deterrent for the cameras i know we talked about the secondary schools does the elementary schools have cameras as well or getting them that's why we just decided the access cameras were supposed to get are on such back order that's for the elementary school yes so we're going to go to uh equivalent quality same quality and we can start that i have to talk to the

047company tomorrow i like to get it started on friday now i know when we talk about secondary sometimes we just uh talk about high schools what about the middle schools and what point do the cameras they have cameras they have them okay just not this the elementary schools don't have now they've been wired so it's just a matter of the company coming in cutting the tile plugging in the camera so it's not going to be a two process we just have to get the cameras on hand and hopefully they said today at the meeting is that they can get this implemented and start it right away okay hear no more questions i do i hear a motion to adjourn the public hearing safety plan yes we only have one comment i'm sorry we only have

048one public comment that's all that's on the list okay okay okay yes again we're going to be doing a second public comment for this for the regular meeting okay there's a motion on the table by mr fey smandel we'll hear a second second by mr grossman all in favor aye anyone opposed or abstain motion carries okay i'd like to call the regular meeting to order now the superintendent has requested to do things a little differently this week being he has some information in the superintendent's report that he'd like to share with the public before we open it up to public speaking that being said i'd like to make a motion to have the superintendent report ahead of the public speaking do i hear a second thank you second bye mark mr berkowitz all those in

049favor aye aye hi anyone opposed superintendent superintendent's report dr ellis thank you uh first i'd like to welcome everybody uh taking time out of your summer evening to join us tonight i'd like to acknowledge all of our administrators here our principals our assistant principals our asf's welcome and thanks for being here um i'd like to formally acknowledge um and thank our assistant superintendent of business linda macias this will be her last um board meeting with us so she's served well it has been a pleasure working with her i just want to acknowledge her so thank you [Applause] next slide please so as we begin all of our meetings our mission is to as a unified school district each rapport central school this week is committed to educating the whole child by providing a healthy safe

050supportive engaging and challenging learning environment our vision will become proficient in all that we do our priority goals goal one is success in the early years without a strong foundation we don't stand a chance goal two a healthy safe supported engaged and challenged environment thus the safety plan we covered just now goal three we want to develop motivated confident empowered critical thinkers goal four we want our students to have master of all academic subjects and the arts thank the young thanks to gold mr goldman for his performance tonight and goal five we want all our high school graduates to be ready for college and beyond our 2022 2023 commitments are as follows number one is our academic and instructional commitment to accelerate academic achievement number two social emotional learning to focus on the social emotional

051health of all of our staff and students and operations is prior to the health and safety of staff students and their families well we'd like to start off with uh a summer reading challenge missy why would you like to take that one sure thank you no problem so we wanted to share that this summer we have a summer reading challenge for our young people learning and growing don't stop over the summer so the purpose of this and we partnered with um renaissance who has been it was so very thrilled to partner with us and actually provided us with some of the prizes that we are able to give to our students based on their reading who can be a part of this this is open to all students k-12 when it started yesterday information was

052given through the library media specialists and also through remind and it continues through august 19th so it's not too late you can start reading now how you log on to your renaissance account through classlink and click on the my on icon and then you just start reading to keep learning and get some awesome prizes so when it actually started um yesterday we were curious so we said well how many people logged on right there amazing so so far 43 books have been finished um in one let 20 a little over 24 hours that's how eager our young people are to read 43 books finished 10 hours and 20 minutes of time spent reading our third grade happens to be the top grade with the most books read and then fleetwood is actually the top building

053right now and i know our principles are here it's not a competition but we just want to highlight and we'll continue to highlight that our goal is to highlight it in different ways and we wanted to share which you probably have received through remind i'm hoping i do this right so you can see it this is the little infomercial for it anyone from the technology committee wants i'm just playing um should we continue okay i mean but missy waha i did watch the video so yes yes the video gave me instructions i even had to ask my daughter do you know how to do this can we do this so hopefully we get those points soon it gives you points right it's really really cool and the students our kids know more than we you

054know sometimes give them credit for so you just give them a little bit and they'll just go at it and there's option for um books in spanish as well as audio for free for students to be able to be read to so there's that option also we're going to continue this into the new year but if this doesn't work it's okay we'll make sure that we send it out district-wide again and we'll do that continuously as well as keep you updated and the students updated because they're really cool prizes including i think what is it called tablet fire thank you um and we have other really good prizes renaissance gave us some like sunglasses and we have some book baggies things so we have really cool things and we want to celebrate some of the

055kids during the board meeting as well just to encourage them okay okay let's go to the next slide let's proceed no problem thank you gentlemen okay so now today um at the rotary club we distributed five scholarships to five of our seniors these are multi-year scholarships we just like to thank the rotary club their a constant support of ours um so we don't want that their their gratitude to go unacknowledged as well so our five seniors benefited from that today next slide so i'd like to talk about our expanded school year our summer programs so first we have a venture academy at summit park so that's going to have roughly i'll serve 300 students and it's a it's everyday everyday program it'll offer new learning experiences with daily rotations for our students our students will

056be provided with interactive learning opportunities journaling and peer discussions we'll focus on social emotional learning and learning a growth mindset approach we'll have a computer science academy at fleetwood also all sports academy at fleetwood we'll have our fine and performing arts plus program at lime kiln we'll have our fundamental explorers program at grandview the fundamental explorers program is of the four-year program for our students to have individualized educational programs and the services will help each child maintain skills and not lose the progress that they made during the school year summer school credit attainment for our high school students grades 9 through 12 and that will serve approximately 800 students that will be at el dorado it's a recovery component to help all of our children get on get on grade level and graduate with their

057cohort we have two new programs one will be at el dorado and the leaders among us and our freshman academy at ramapo next slide so now i just like to go over some of some business here our timeline back in fall of 2021 our school district summer programs needed needed certain space and and because of projected facilities upgrades and work we felt that there would be no way we can uh rent any space to summer camps for this summer now and that was our stance that was our belief based on the projected facilities upgrades this entire year on june 21st we had a presentation by csa arch the district architects notified us that there were several buildings that would not be under construction due to delays in delivery of tools and equipment to you know

058maintain the facilities upgrades we had a discussion with the board of education that was their presentation it was there was one a non-public school camp that had not yet secured a location and had expressed an interest following the analysis of the public school instructional needs availability and feasibility el dorado elementary school was identified it was shared and it was no impact on the public school programs nor budget two new school public school summer programs were added those were the new ones we talked about at the end that was the freshman academy and leaders among us now last weekend i believe it was friday as mr carton mentioned a truck a garbage truck backed into grand view destroyed some wiring destroyed some masonry and for that moment in time the building was closed and was going

059to be shut down for operations so i'd like to take this opportunity now to thank our entire team following the safety commit the safety plan and our team of assistant superintendents uh missy waha miss walker miss barrow and miss macias for all chipping in over the holiday weekend pivoting on a dime and helping us get back on track and i will tell you it was it was very distressing for this to take place with the help of the utility companies with the help of boces inspectors and our team we were able to get the building renovated in a short period of time and recertified for our certificate of occupancy to be valid that being said we would not have to switch any of the programs that would be at grand view basically our fundamental program

060that serves our students with 12-year 12-month ieps so as a result that opened it also gave an opportunity to expand our learning options for elementary middle and high school students we were able to expand our offerings um by taking a challenge and turning it around so i'm really grateful for our entire team for what took place next slide so now how we came up with the facilities rates um yes the facilities rates last year were approximately sixteen thousand dollars to one to the camp this year those rates are now close to fifty thousand dollars and the way the way that that was determined was we took last year's cost and we um added six point seven percent for the consumer price index which is new york state approved thus we came up with the forty

061six thousand dollars and thus our current rate at this point in time the use of school buildings um were earmarked by new york state guidelines which stated that being in a contingency budget no outside organization could use our building if it would cost any uh any money from the taxpayers therefore this new rate there will be no cost to our taxpayers um aside from the the renters so this is what we feel was the most viable position to take and i think that um our team did a great job in calculating the rates um it's the first time the rates have been uh changed since 2008. so for that i'm extremely grateful next slide so now um mr carton would you like to go this one thank you doctor as i said earlier um we're

062doing a staff development professional development for my people so that's one part but as long as we have students in any of our buildings we're gonna have security at the buildings this this summer so they're in yesterday in training and starting monday they'll be in all the schools that were we have our our programs our students in thank you additionally we are in process of um interviewing security guards and our goal is for next year to have security guards in all of our schools inclusive of all of our elementary schools which was something that had been on the table and i wanted to let the leaders of the schools know that we um kept our word we've just been trying to get viable candidates and we've been working with the civic association sharing the um

063applications as well so i'm grateful for that and we're making progress i have a question by the security um i have we looked into outside agencies to see if they can provide us with any security guards by law we can't do that security has a con their civil service and union employees so the terminology is they own the contract so we can't contract outside security to take the place of security guards okay not to necessarily take or replace um i know that it was done through boces where they needed extra security guards so to in order to do that they looked outside to see if they can have more security in the meantime i guess until they find find security guards to replace or to fill in so i was just wondering if that's also

064an option so let me jump in really quickly what we're doing um what we're doing to support our summer programs i hope this answers a little bit we've been using some of our carissa funds and it will pay for additional um security guards that will cover all our summer programs to make sure that all agreements we have with any um outside organizations are being honored so that that's i mean that's a little bit i don't know if it answered your question entirely but that's taking place yep but if you're saying supplement that's something i have to speak to uh miss taylor and uh mr gearhart about to see legalities of doing that now i'd like to uh turn over to um assistant superintendent macias for the last time to cool with the fun balance projection

065thank you dr ellis um before i start the fun balance projection i'd just like to thank the board of education for the opportunity to serve the east ramapo community um it's been a wonderful experience and something i'll hold near and dear to my heart for years to come so thank you um so tonight we'd like to present the fund balance projection for your ending um june 30th 2022. tonight we'll go over a very brief history we did a look back from 2013-14 to current all of this data comes from the audited financial statements what is fund balance fund balance essentially is your access revenue over expenditures you'll see that for a year ending june 30th 2021 the district ended with a negative fund balance and uh the projected fund balance for this year is negative

066seven i can go into detail at the next in the next few slides so looking at the fund balance projection you'll see that overall we're ending the year with approximately 4.5 million less in revenue the driver for these these changes are driven by the use of the federal stimulus funding these are expense driven revenues and so essentially if you don't spend it you don't get it in and so that's the primary source of the shortfall in revenue in terms of looking at the expenditure side you'll see that we have approximately 20 million less in expenditures and again the drivers for these changes are the use of the federal stimulus funding the goal was to shift as many expenditures that we could from the general fund to the special aid fund to relieve the general fund

067of expenses to hopefully create reserves which is what we what we did a few meetings ago we established reserves for the district but overall we're approximately 15.3 million to the good um which is the the direct impact of the um the negative 7 million going from the negative 21 to the negative seven and so looking at it from a succinct perspective you'll see that we ended fund balance last year at the negative 22. we are 15 million to the good and after taking some estimates for encumbrances and interest we we're projecting to end the year at negative 7 million in fund balance important to note we're still actively working on closing the books for the district this process is very labor-intensive it takes weeks if not months to finalize and so this number may change

068between now and the time that the audit the audited financial statements are published in in or around october we are on schedule this year to close on time and to report our financials to the state on time by september 15th i worked with the audit team and the rest of the business office staff who has been working diligently with the external auditors to answer any questions and provide the paperwork that they have requested as part of their audit review mrs masayas just really quick i know i keep asking the same question i was looking at the arpa i only saw on that last slide you showed million didn't we get more than that like what was the total i keep asking it i know i keep asking the same question but i know you know

069i'm trying to see i don't want to be in a deficit as a district um so where is isn't it more than 43 million yes so great question um the allocation is approximately 150 50 million about give or take what the state has done is they've asked us to identify by fiscal year how we intend to spend those funds a very big portion of the 43 million that you see there is related to capital expenditures related to the capital approved project through arpa if you'll recall in on june 21st the architects came in to explain the lead time for some of the equipment related to the buildings that are now available that weren't available prior to that and a very big portion of that 43 million is related to the equipment that we would have

070normally purchased had we not had that extended lead time so so if if we got the arpa the 150 million dollars approximately right then how come we had to stop um different you know we were doing infrastructure in certain schools right so how come we had to stop when we have the funds and i know we have a deadline you know what i mean for us to get things done yes i'm i'm just lost i'm really lost say again so i'm lost about how come we're stopping infrastructure in some of our buildings when we have the arpa to do the service you know you know what i'm saying so no nothing has stopped at the buildings what has del what has been delayed is the equipment that's needed in order to do the work um

071only reason why i said that if i if i'm thinking back it was stated that if our budget failed there were certain schools that would no longer be infrastructure wouldn't take place in some of the schools that's correct but that's not tied to arp so you have to separate the arp funding is in the in the the special aid fund the general fund expenditures what you're referring to which are the repairs at the secondary schools for pe and at the auditorium in ramapo high school those are general fund dollars so federal stimulus funding goes into the special aid fund and you need permission from the state on how you're going to spend those funds so there's a very long process you apply you have to meet the three pillars academic social emotional operations and then

072you get a very specific approval for the use of those funds that's the 150 that's separate and apart then you have the general fund pot of funding that comes from taxpayers and state aid and other revenue that is what the community votes on and those capital projects were not approved by the voters so the 150 million dollars i think will be helpful for myself as well as the board and i and i accessed before whatever the 150 million dollars was allocated for we really need i think a detailed report would be very helpful that has been provided to the board and it's also posted on our website okay before you leave because i know you're leaving um can you please email us a detailed report of that absolutely yes so i can absolutely do that

073and i'll i'll show you also where it's it's posted on the website but important to note um the state has asked prior to me leaving um to update the five-year fiscal plan and um in accordance with that i'm also going to update where we are on the federal stimulus funding what we anticipated spending for 2122 what we ended up spending and how we're shifting those expenses over the next the subsequent years for both chris and arp both of them have different expiration dates so making sure that we're thoughtful and how we plan fiscally moving forward in the within that time frame will be critical um so those are two reports that i will be providing not only to the state but of course the board as well prior to my departure thank you no problem

074at the at the last board meeting when uh they had presented there was a lot of questions asked and there was a lot of information that we had requested timelines reports from them to provide to us um has that been done is that something you can provide us as well because there was a lot of changes that were made last minute that i'm pretty sure the entire board wasn't aware of that we learned that night what what changes for example ramp and spring valley no longer being part of the plan for this for phase one right so important to note they came in and presented on tuesday june 21st all of the information that they presented on that date was known and confirmed either friday of the week before or monday the day before the

075board meeting everyone was working very diligently reaching out to different vendors on new york state contracts we went on different cooperative bids to see if maybe we could leverage our resources and get some of this material in sooner again speaking to different vendors even adjusting the budget in different areas to see what we could do to capture all of the information that we give we try to be as transparent and as up-to-date as possible what we've done with the construction management team is we've asked for them to produce a report to the board on a monthly basis to explain where we are in each phase of the project no i'm not i'm sorry not to cut you off but i understand what you're saying what i'm saying is based on the conversation we had that

076night we had asked for an update on all the changes and i think also for the um the slideshow that they showed to be sent to us and to possibly put on the website because i know they you know because of timing it was the night of the election um they didn't get to go through through the entire slide that they had because of the many questions that were asked that night so i believe what we had asked was for there to be an update provided to the board and also the slideshow and i i know he said that he was gonna there was some changes that he had to make within the slideshow himself based on the questions that were asked so i'm asked what i'm asking is were those changes made and are

077they ready to be updated on the website and to be provided to the board so i believe the um the update to the board was provided in june it looks like we provided it that week that friday of the the meeting for the friday update i can make sure that it's posted on the district website as well and if there are further questions from the report that's provided i'm happy to seek out clarification where needed okay thank you no problem and that concludes the fund balance projection uh thank you that that concludes the superintendent report for this evening on july 6 2022 i'm sorry um president uh rose if you could just give me one second uh dr ellis um just a quick question you know moving forward we do want to be transparent um

078and i know everybody on this board would like to be transparent you know we want to be free from pretense deceit um if changes are going to be made this board i mean everyone on the board should know especially the like even the students parents family communities and taxpayers of this district our communication in my opinion has to get better in order to bring collaboration and you know without transparency this will never happen so for the record i just would like to know for clarification what is happening for the summer in each school so if you can help me with that i wrote down the name of the schools in our district so at ramapo high school because i'm hearing that that's no longer going to take place the flooring abatement and stuff like that

079am i correct so what's happening at ramapo for the summer please ramapo high school sure sure at ramapo high school we're having our freshman academy all right so you're having the freshman academy yes so i know that i was looking on the website that needs to be updated unless it was updated yesterday or last night or this morning rather i know spring valley high school was supposed to have the freshman academy but you moved it so i think on the website though it might still say spring valley senior high school so i said it again yeah if you look on the website i looked at all the schools to see what was going on basically so i know that at one time freshman academy was supposed to be at spring valley so you're now saying

080that's at ramapo correct and then spring valley high school you're doing the credit recovery right or or attainment is that correct uh yes yes you are yes it is okay what's happening at pomona please for the summer i just wanted on the record it might be on the website but it's important to that all this information be on the record and also for the community i can get that free i don't have it on my list right now all right anyone over here the cab can they answer mona what we can do is we can list every building the the construction work that's occurring this summer was explained on june 21st okay the architecture as you know i was a chairperson right on june 21st so that's why i'm just getting clarification and i just

081want it for the record so can you tell me exactly what's happening at pomona i can pull the slides from june 21st and reference them i'm sorry before we move on to pomona um i have other schools just give me a second example for the freshman academy that they mentioned that's going to happen at ramapo it's on the agenda for spring valley high school i know that that's what i was explaining to them so we'll get that cleared but um looking at pomona i'm sorry pomona where are we with pomona so at pomona middle school in accordance to the um slide deck that was shared with the community on june 21st we're doing flooring abatement at pomona high school pomodo middle school we're also doing some hood i'm sorry mrs macias i don't mean to

082cut you off so pomona we're doing the flooring abatement we're doing the flooring abatement and we're also doing the kitchen hood replacement all right hold on kitchen hood we're doing new ceilings and lighting and we're making sure that we're code compliant okay with the associated ductwork okay what about chestnut ridge chestnut ridge middle school we're doing kitchen hood replacements again we're making sure that we're code compliant and we are doing ceilings and light and lighting in chestnut ridge middle school okay what about khaki stem academy khaki at steam academy um so when we talk about khaki at important to note that we're talking about khaki and ecc um and so we're doing flooring abatement in the entire building okay we're also doing ada compliant sinks and caseworks in all of the classrooms and we're doing

083a kitchen hood uh replacement and associated upgrades so again that's code compliance um ceilings uh and lighting okay and then lime kim we're doing we're going to be having uh esy program right so the fine and performing arts academy that is correct okay and then at grandview we're doing also in programmers yes okay and i saw dr ella you put up summit park adventure academy yes on the slide you had fleetwood right with the computer science academy and all sparks all sports academy i just want to make sure i have it and then margets so margettes is also having capital improvements this summer we're doing flooring abatement 88 compliance sinks and case work in the classrooms and we're also doing the kitchen hood replacement again code compliance and ceilings and lighting great and hempstead hempstead

084we are doing kitchen hood replacement and associated upgrades so code compliance ceilings and lighting good and then onward elmwood we're doing a full flooring abatement ada compliant sinks caseworking classrooms and the kitchen hood replacement associated upgrades which include the compliance great and then i think the last one was el dorado now i know that's something on the agenda but what happens to i know that i saw um at el dorado at one time we were going to do the leaders among us k through six leaders among us yes that's the new program still taking place okay correct that's still taking place thank you and we'll make sure our updates on the website will take place okay i'd like to make a motion to open up public speaking so i hear a second second by vice

085president charles pierre all those in favor say aye aye another pose abstain motion carries speaker number one ain't no good afternoon here good evening um i'm very concerned about the summer program not having enough slots for kids that need it um i hear that there's supposed to be repairs at el dorado elementary and now the school is being rented thank you so much for lying to us monitors about renting out the school property our kids don't have enough space for summer camps or anything else okay your trust is not there where are the teachers contracts it's been two years don't be shaking in your chair that's rude when people are talking bro um i don't understand what's going on with the repairs with the shady work that's being done there with cardboards by elmwood and

086hoses coming out of it with tape and plastic you're endangering the community complex across the street get it together because the way that rapping is is not correct you're endangering the community with the pipes and the tubings plastic tubing saying asbestos this is enough that the teachers need contracts it's been two years get it together the schools need good teachers even though we got some corrupt people on the board um i don't understand what's going on with the supplies that you said el dorado it wasn't coming for el dorado so how are these schools being kept safe where's the health and safety team lyme count wouldn't have caught on fire if you had correct people inspecting the schools spring valley high school wouldn't have been closed down if you had the correct people inspecting the

087schools where are all the reports for the public to see this this is a complete nonsense mess and this district is going into the turmoil as far as i'm concerned what i saw with the voting today you could forget that nonsense i'm done i'm done okay this right here is not equal for the community this is why the community does not trust any of you i just stood here and heard an oath being took in and yet grossman violates it three different sentences for us and you think that that could be forgiven not in your lifetime it's not going to be forgiven you walked into a mess and thank you you're going to pick up the mess now sir i am sick and tired of this and i'm sick and tired of this board not

088wanting to hear or listening to the community and the community is getting tired of it i told you that disrespectful do you got a rocking problem bro seriously that's rude stop the nonsense you're a kid grow up this is enough already what's going on here jerry mcgill talked about transparency this is nothing but a better leader than what you got sitting there as president all i see is a vote down for what reason and a setup as an individual and an advocate for this community it is wrong okay what you're doing is completely wrong good luck we're going to get receivership and i hope the state separates this district buy because that's not required thank you everybody [Music] speaker number two good evening i've spoken to this point before and i would appreciate an answer

089to the following i pulled into a parking lot recently and guess what the sign said authorize parking only others will be towed at their expense i spoke at this at a community circle dr ellis and you took notes i spoke to mr carton about this months ago and before you know it it's going to get darker earlier would you please give me a response that's number one number two i skimmed the report on security for the schools and i remember mr rubin discussing something it may have been at a community circle meeting it may have been public about special door handles for each classroom so the teacher in the case of an emergency could lock the handle inside the classroom and secure the door i didn't see it and i could have missed it in

090your public safety report but since we have the funds i would appreciate an answer and you have my name you have my email and you have my phone number please let me know at least this summer are all the classroom doors going to be secure when we start school in the fall thank you [Applause] thank you that concludes the public speaking moving on to consent and agenda items do i have a motion for consent and agenda items one through nine moved by mr grossman second by mr gruber any discussion on the matter hearing not i'm sorry i'm sorry yes um under certified personal recommendations we just talked about a list of schools that will be holding certain programs and it was stated that ramapo will have the freshman academy and not spring valley but on

091this agenda it shows spring valley high school is that no is it will it no longer be spring valley this slide is correct it should be ramapo so it needs so it needs to be i don't think i saw ramapo on here it says freshman freshman academy locations from valley high school and then it says j expanded school year program credit recovery slash attainment spring valley high school freshman academy should be at ramapo i'm sorry i can't hear you freshman academy slaughter for ramapo freshman academy ramapo no what i'm saying is it's incorrect on the in agreement it's incorrect so if we so it will be done at ramapo it will be done at ramacall so miss kivy can we make that correction which item are we looking at which number number four no it's

092under number three i'm sorry number letter j letter g certified g so it's number three i i thought we were on consent agenda we are okay we are on there's there's no g certified personnel recommendations okay number three we're looking at um let me give you a page number it's page 13 and it's just the freshman academy that should be changed to ramapo what page page 13 page 30 it is letter g and which item second under five fundamentally essential expanded school year and is letter g so the freshman academy will be ramapo is that the only change yes okay now do the program directors and leader instructors are there aware that it will be at round poll because i know that i notice the people we have listed they're originally from spring valley dr

093olamiju and mr greenbaum i just interrupted we should have a motion and a seconder to make that change well i want to ask that just in case it has to be changed as well is there a motion and a second on these items right now if there isn't there should be a motion in a second once after discussion we can make an amendment recommendation that the motion be made to amend spring valley it's really just a type typographical error i mean it should be changed no no what i'm asking is for that same one is the program director and the instructor from spring valley aware that it's at ramapo and is that were they chosen based on the fact that it was originally supposed to be at spring valley high school now i'll answer our

094goal once we were aware of the openings of additional buildings was to identify additional programs as the community understands if the additional programs are i mean different additional buildings are open then we identified additional programs so this the two programs were not initially existing we initially had um uh excuse me that we initially had the the previous uh five we now have leaders among us which will be at el dorado freshman academy at ramapo credit attainment recovery at um spring valley so now the buildings that were previously under capital improvement now have a program each of them have a program in it no no i'm aware of all of that what i'm just saying is that since the location originally was spring valley high school and the two it wasn't originally this was just a

095it was an hour just a table just for the location got it okay i'd like to make a motion for consent agenda items one through nine with the number three amended do i hear a second second by mr effie weissmann question um item number three um there's something else in there but it's personnel a personnel matter and i know i can't discuss it out in public so how do we handle that trustee mcgill could you tell us what page you're on yes it's um go to number three and uh go to page i can't express my concerns in public though dr ellis anyway on this matter uh mr gerhart your suggestion i'm not sure what item we're talking about it's a personnel matter i understand on what page of that reporter i'm looking for it

096well it's a public document right now we're all looking at the same book share you talking about the certified personnel right yes well um i just have a quick question kathy when was the last time this was updated when was the last time the certified personnel was updated okay thank you i i'm not sure how to answer your question if there's an item on the agenda that you'd like to discuss you can identify what the item is to the degree that there's personnel matters related to that item that may be more prudent for executive session but there's no issue with a board member identifying something that's on a public document in public session as to where their concern is i don't see it now so we can continue on the motion okay we have a

097motion and a second on the motion yeah we have the motion already no i'd like to ask something on the motion i would like to discuss some i would like to ask something on the motion go ahead mr khan just curious i know we'll be able to explain it i'm looking for example page 14. it has 35 dollars per hour effective um june 27th till july 1st but from july 5th to august 19 it's 18 513.32 for only 5.5 and a half hours per day um i'm just curious what's the reason from june to july 1st it's only 35 per hour but the remain the other dates are much more per hour i'm curious i noticed the same the same thing on some other items as well mr coth is it in the consent and

098agenda items are you talking about the action items we're not up to the action certified dr ellis should i answer okay so what this is showing is the difference between preparation and planning prior to the program starting and then the salary received when the program is actually in session so i guess planning and preparation is less than yes and we we put it not to exceed a certain amount i understand i'm just asking about the hour no no thank you hearing no further discussion we have a motion and a second all those in favor say aye aye anyone opposed or abstained carries motion carries moving on to action items um [Music] there's a lot of items on the board on is there anything let's perhaps do it in two parts one through ten and then

099eleven to seventeen do the whole thing in different parts i'm sorry i said we could do the whole thing in different parts is there anything specific you'd like to do separately because we have 17 items on the agenda i have a question in item 2. you need to have a motion in order to have discussion about things last minute okay action items i hear a motion for items one through seventeen yes i'll make the motion by miss miss ashley leville and i'll second it for the purpose of discussion second by ms sherry mcgill any discussion sherry you want to ask something go ahead yes item number three in terms of the health and safety committee and also to the school safety team are other board members entitled to participate in such committee and team mrs

100mcgill can you tell me what basis where you are i'm sorry i'm on action item number three dr ellis if i could uh make a comment i i believe that uh the superintendent's office sent an invitation to the entire board who would like to be on the committee and the people named here are the ones who responded when was this yeah so it would be up to dr ellis if you wanted to expand the committee we can we can add additional members we had the meeting two weeks ago our health and safety committee meeting because it was something that was long-standing we wanted to address it we all agreed on that so certainly we have um members acro across represented a cross section of the community staff uh union elites administrators we had a student

101uh we had uh community members so yes all right so other board members can join if they like other board members can alright i would like to join that committee of course thank you no more um i do as well but kathy the email that you're referring to it was a it was a matter of availability the health and safety committee was just commenting that i know that dr ellis's office did send the invitation out to the entire board but as dr ellis just noted he's open to additional board members joining yes i would like to join as well uh up to four board members could join that commission what we'll do is do our best to uh you know address everybody's schedule needs to try to satisfy that yeah because i'm a little bit

102i understand the invitation but i'm looking at the email and certain people couldn't attend but it was also a timeliness thing i needed i had to get that meeting we had to get that meeting um on the table but no no problem it was given to us the day before the meeting understood you're welcome to join though item number six the school bus logistics this is the same company we used last year right am i correct that is correct this is to extend the contract for um the subsequent year the 22-23 school year with specific support i have a question on item number two item number two is authorizes myself and mr code for to go to classes could we vote on this and if we can't vote then we'll should maybe divide it like

103this we don't follow from all other items mr gerhart is it recommended it's it's mandated from the state to board courses i could clarify that the two courses are mandatory required by the state for all new board members to complete within their first year of board service the courses are available online so you can do them at your convenience and you have one year to complete the courses i understand that my question is that we are voting on it could i vote on that because it pertains to me every every board member can can vote on that even if the person attending the class is you okay thank you uh question on number four i'm not sure if this is just a type of a point to appoint book smart accounting for school year 2022-2023

104um it says whereas i'll skip through all closing accounting entries for the 2021 22 school year ending june 30th 2022 should that say 2022 2023 school year ending june 30th i think the 21 and 22 school year is ending in june 30th 2022 but it should be 2022 2023 school year number four is that for this school year or for next school year i defer to miss macias it should read 22-23 school year year ending june 30th 2023 okay thank you and i have a question about number 17. bless you actually i don't have a question about number 17. i'm just a little ticked off because you know we sat at the board meetings and well let's just be clear i want camps for everyone but we sat at the board meetings and bruce was

105going back and forth with harry about no there's not going to be camps there's not going to be camps then here we are with the camp lease on the agenda the only thing i'm asking for is transparency i could understand if it was a if it came to the board about it being there but then boom here it goes it's on the agenda no one said anything you ask questions you're not getting a full answer it's really honestly frustrating and then now we have to go back and explain to the community oh i don't even know what to say to the community because here it is on the agenda it makes us look crazy it makes me look crazy when i'm trying to explain it also for number 17 at the last policy committee meeting

106it was we had a conversation about getting a comparison of the fees so we can come up with a policy an updated policy to be able to rent our facilities and i believe it was mentioned that we couldn't rent until those policies were put in place i know there's a lot of different organizations throughout the school year that wanted to rent out that couldn't rent out at first the excuse was covid and then after that it was because we didn't have fees and a policy in place with updated fees i know there was a slide that was shared tonight that wasn't shared with the committee after we had the conversation at the last committee for that to be you know for different um reports to be shared with us so how is it that where

107this the camp nothing personal against the camp whether no matter what it was the fact that we're renting out how are we renting without a policy in place for renting so the same slide that was shown tonight that discusses how we broke down the rates that was the same data that was shared at the last policy committee meeting what i explained in that policy committee meeting is i gave you a framework of how we would derive the actual costs and that we could look at that to develop the use of facilities rates but i cautioned the committee that that would require us to then update the rates on a yearly basis because the cost of living increases inflation it all has to be taken into consideration correct but i think we were also supposed to

108look deeper into what the other surrounding districts to see correct and right what we shared tonight it wasn't the first that this is the second time now that i'm not saying it's the first time what i'm saying is i thought we were going to get the policy in order first get it approved by the board before actually renting out to anyone so i think what we're talking about are um two separate things that are related so yes you're correct in saying that we were talking during the policy committee about establishing rates for the use of facilities because of the timeline that dr ellis explained earlier during his report and the chain of events that occurred the building became available we received interest and we utilized first we went to the opinion of council related to

109contingency budgets to see what we were allowed to do what what can we do within our parameters and what we identified is the only way we could rent out space is if it's to no cost to the taxpayers and it has no impact um to the general fund budget and so we utilize that same methodology in looking at total cost but we took into account cpi which is the cost of inflation and we added that to the rate to make sure that we were capturing all of the costs for this year once again i i understand but you know once again going back to transparency and communication um you know after our last meeting policy meeting it was never discussed about we never discussed about renting buildings um even if this was discussed after the

110fact it wasn't presented to the committee wasn't presented to the board that this was the route we're going to take so what i'm saying is how are we you know going forth with this without a policy in place and are you saying that what was presented to us tonight is that the fee and race that we're going to go on go with moving forward i guess i should ask that question so that's a decision for the board to make when we present when we meet again for our policy committee meeting to discuss again where we are with the use of facilities rates we can utilize this as a baseline but it changes it's unique to each school because it's it's based on what the analysis that we provided tonight is unique to eldorado they took

111the square footage from that building each classroom auto whatever spaces they're interested in renting um so going along with what i said during the policy committee meeting if we want to utilize actual cost then that's going to be unique on a case-by-case basis depending on the location and uses of particular spaces but that'll be a decision for the board to make at the next policy committee meeting so let's say we decide not to go with what was presented tonight in terms of the fee right how does that change things for the camp that will be leased it would have no impact because we still have to follow the law and the law states that we can't have any impact no no burden to the taxpayers so it wouldn't have an impact it would just change

112moving forward it would change for the next voter but under contingency budget for the 22-23 school year we must adhere to that opinion of council which states that we cannot have a an additional burden to the school district a fiscal burden and is that writing also um in the in the lease because as ms lavell mentioned mr singer did make it clear and i believe um ms fox also made it clear that we couldn't rent out at all because we were in a contingency budget so is that is there any language added to the lease about the contingency contingency budget and us being able to rent as long as they adhere to i don't believe that i defer to the district council to see if that's something that can be added as an amendment to

113the existing agreement just stating that we're adhering to opinion of council 213. i defer to district council just for the sake of clarity i mean can we ask the monitors i mean tonight we only have one how she feels about this about this proposed contract so generally we don't include in the lease all the details of how the calculation would be done because we're it's dictated by law as there's a presumption that that's how we're doing it um so it's a little i'm only asking because we are we are in a contingency budget and you know our district is very unique when it comes to the budget passing or not passing so i just want to make sure that it's all the language is clear to all again i i typically when we draft a

114lease such as such as this we are regulated by you know we don't need the property we don't we don't need the space the determinations made we don't need the space for school purposes at the time releasing it and we charge the costs associated with operation of the school and in this case according to the um controller's opinion from some years ago we can we can do this as long as we're covering all the costs associated with the lease we're doing that so it's it's understood that we're doing that i guess putting that in the lease would i mean i suppose we could put it in there but it's understood it's almost that that's how we're coming but how do we know that we're doing that because we of the increase well because it was

115i think that's what was shown i think that that detail was provided by the business office you know actually just a short while ago in terms of how that was all calculated and as dr ellison mentioned that was that calculation was updated substantially from quite a number of years ago so i think that's how we know i mean is that does that help answer your question i mean it answers kind of sort of but once again um the fact that there should be a policy in place and this doesn't meet the policy that's already in place nor does it nor have we i guess approve or you know the new fees rates that were shared i'm just i just want to make sure that as a district we're doing what needs to be done legally

116my my understanding is you are i mean we've we've had leases of district property for a wide range of reasons for many many years no but the difference now is the the policy change that we've been discussing i'm not sure because what what's what was presented to us tonight doesn't reflect the policy that we have in place how how so maybe i'm not following the the rate the fees that was just presented is much higher than what we have in place right now the purpose of the discussion at the uh committee meetings we've been having was to update the policy and to make sure we had the up up to date rates and fees so that when we do uh rent out that you know it's aligned with the policy we have in place i

117my understanding is that what we're doing this evening with respect to the the costs being charged to the camp is reflective of the policy and the rate we're supposed to charge because we're supposed to cover all the costs associated with the building that's that's my understanding of what you're doing i agree with that but what i'm saying is that but that's not a policy that's put in place but it's as of yet but it's the law says we have to do that since we're in a contingency budget that's what we have to charge i mean you raise an interesting point if the rate hasn't been charged if that calculation wasn't done or redone since i forget what dr l said you know i guess it could beg the question was the rate being charged in

118eight nine ten eleven twelve et cetera the right rate i mean that's probably a fair question i think we're comfortable right now with the rate that was presented earlier and the calculation that was done showing that it's accurate and reflective of exactly the costs of running the building so i think there's there's certainly a high comfort level with respect to that number but i mean i guess you need to raise a fair point maybe the number that we're using last year the year before whatever if it wasn't fully reflective of that could have been problematic i don't know that it was or not i'm not i'm not suggesting that i don't do the calculation but i think the previous years were reflective of what we've been doing for the past couple of years which is

119like i said different from what we're trying to do now fair enough fair enough but it's consistent with what the law requires so i don't think you need a change in policy to adhere to the law it's it's axiomatic that you have to adhere to the law so we don't that's and that gets back to the original question we don't really need to do an amendment to say we are adhering to opinion of council because we have to adhere to opinion of council 213. i have a question i'm going back to transparency again was this open to the whole community and when i say that was other organizations given the opportunity to bid on occupying that empty space was other organizations yeah i i don't know the answer to that's that's not a douglas question

120i mean i don't really know i mean i guess i could present it to the dr ellis or there there's no formal bidding uh bidding is when you're looking for a particular service to get from a vendor this came about because of the announcement that the architects made on june 21st to the community where the community became aware of a possibility of a building being utilized during that meeting on june 21st the architects mentioned three buildings we had already been in the process of developing what programs we could now host in those three buildings because we wanted to make sure that we were expanding programs for public school students first and so there was no formal announcement put out to the community to let them know that this building was available because we were trying

121to create and pivot at that point to develop programs for the public school students we were successful in creating programs but there ultimately is room and so because the building is available as long as we're adhering to the law and and making sure that we're not passing any fiscal burden to the taxpayers we're able to do so i understand that a building became available because we're not going to be having programs for our students i understand that part but what i'm saying too is what others considered in terms of occupying that space that is now available because there's no programs being run in there for the public students that's what i'm asking you so similar to this camp seeking um clarification from the district on whether it was available or not i suppose the rest

122of the community had that same opportunity but just to be clear that this they they rented last year from the east ramapan building see again last year they rented a building from east france this camp has been renting for 18 years 18 years this camp has been getting the school building it's nothing new are you able to tell us how many students were enrolled before we found out that these extra schools were available and the difference now that they are available how many more have enrolled since what's the increase i i have projected numbers i don't see how do we have that data readily available to repeat the question are you asking what has been the increase based on the open opening of two additional programs i'm i'm asking the question is the question what

123is the increase of students what was based on what was the enrollment for the esy right um before we found out that we had the extra schools and what's the what's the enrollment now that we know that these schools are available okay so i'm going to say it's projected enrollment it's because students aren't present in the program now but the students who have registered i can speak to the all programs except for credit recovery because that requires looking at report cards et cetera the classes that are needed so that's going to happen as students register the expectation for credit recovery attainment is that we have capacity for 800. so outside of credit recovery attainment summer school the esy programs for our non-credit bearing programs that would be about 939 projected enrollment and now that we

124have the two additional programs we have 200 104 freshmen academy 104 leaders among us so i guess let me ask a different question um to date what is the total enrollment for the entire how many students are we servicing right outside i could say outside of credit attainment and recovery projected enrollment is 1139 inclusive of these two new programs okay so um i think i saw something posted on social media media i think it went up yesterday the day before yesterday saying that we're still looking what are we doing to do an outreach to the community besides social media still looking for what uh for students i guess to enroll to the esl okay so with the leaders for freshmen academy it's for currently enrolled students so what's happening you're talking about recruiting for students

125what are we not specific to the recovery and the freshmen again right now the the elementary i guess the case so the two the two programs two new programs are freshman academy it's non-credit bearing and that's our eighth graders going into ninth grade so specifically for those students so those are the students who are being recruited through our middle school principles um as well as through you know remind calling like making phone calls our program directors are on it right now so i do want to state that i am very impressed with the program directors who jumped on this because originally they weren't ide that we we put out of you know put out a call to who would be interested in being a program director for this we turn this around in about three

126days so i want to commend those program directors who took this on who who after school has closed were able to identify teachers who would be interested in it so i first want to say that and thank you to those who are doing it in addition to the recruiting making phone calls working to get the students through those avenues for freshmen academy with our leaders among us there is something that you're probably mentioning that you probably saw posting or maybe a remind message encouraging students to come in right now we have about 300 students who are interested in leaders among us but we have only space for 100. so i um i guess my my question to be a little bit more clear let's take out what we added which is the freshman academy and

127the the recovery what we already had in place which was already i believe to capacity has that been opened up to more students now that we have room no we we would need the first step um i believe this was we started this in around january in terms of being able to plan so as we started planning for the summer in january the first step is identifying staff without the staff we cannot you know identify how many students so the staff helps us the staff as well as capacity of the building helps us determine how many students and we also maintain we try and maintain a 1 to 15 ratio we have gone a little over 1 to 16 or so to try and get more students in there but that's the purpose of the

128program so we can focus on providing that unfinished learning support and math and ela as well as the themed activities so to answer your question we have identified the staff they've been getting pd beginning yesterday and today we are not opening it up to any additional students unless students in the program do not show up next week and we have opportunities so that's ongoing so to clarify the esy program for the summer that went out months ago for students to enroll that number's already set all we did was add the freshman academy and the credit recovery and that's the increase due to the two schools that we have you are correct like to make a recommendation and it's not just for this lease but for all leases going forward to add i'll say an addendum

129or appendix to the lease over the line line item of what the costs are so that the lessee knows how that number is reached we couldn't do that before because we didn't know where the number came from now we do so i think it's good transparently to share that number two i wanted to thank linda for everything she did it was interesting times um and without missing a step it was been a pleasure working with you and you're going to where i grew up so it should be fun okay so i'm sorry before uh before we move on number 11 the upk pro full uh expansion full day program how did we did we do i know this question was asked before where we had asked for um i personally also had asked for a

130list of different upk programs that we reached out to to see if that was centered in our district to make it more convenient to our families i notice here we have the playhouse preschool of rocklin i guess they're located in blauvelt did what outreach did we do to try to get um i guess locations located closer to home for our families i can respond to that so we sent out an rfp we publish it on our website and on the the site where the purchasing agent publishes all her rfps different organizations applied you see here in the resolution that there were five total that had sent in applications we created a committee of five people to review all of the applications we had a rubric that was scaled each question having a certain number of

131points we made it a point to include a question regarding location right accessibility we wanted to we we knew that we had a lot of students that were that we were aiming to get who were in the center and we wanted to make sure that the locations that were closer to the center of the district were represented in in the the in the scale ultimately the two centers that you see on the resolution are the ones that scored the highest by far we had one center that is in the center of spring valley one location that did not score very well at all in responding to the question i'm sorry i didn't hear that they didn't know what they didn't score well at all they uh with three responding to the questions that we had

132that we had asked we had certain criteria that we asked each proposer to address so we uh the two that scored the highest are the ones that you see on the resolution i'm sorry if i may ask what were the questions the two questions there were about 20 questions total so they the proposers had to tell us about their the curriculum uh what they do for social emotional learning how their center is designed they had to submit a sketch of their learning centers or what the play area was like give us the resumes of the people working there of the director and the teachers and things like that so there are about 20 of these criteria that we that we all independently reviewed and scored so if i remember correctly when i was signing up

133my son for upk i had a i was given a list of different locations that were located within the district that i was able to choose from and i'm assuming they were listed because they met those criterias um the only difference i guess between then and now is that social emotional learning was probably not one of those questions so i guess my question is what outreach did we do to the upk organizations that we already deal with to see if they were interested in possibly participating in this i believe they they knew that we had told them that we were going to be sending out this rfp um and um the ones that could apply for it that had these number one the space uh number two had the certificated staff that would be able

134to um to hold the classes are the ones that applied but this is only when you say space i mean this is only one classroom of 20 students correct right so this so it assumes that the centers had an additional classroom that was ready to go with staff that was ready to go or the staff that they could identify that they would hire if they were accepted so this grant this is the expansion grant right so this is the correct the second one that we got that was for 40 students two classrooms of 20. we still have all the other upk correct sites and centers and students and we now have additional upk students that we're going to be looking for from the legislation when they provided our our state aid so we have a

135report on how um the other two sites that we that was approved previously i think it was also saint paul and i think st gregory how that enrollment went and you know the amount of students did they get enrollment yes they did one had 15 students and one had seven and what was the what was the max yeah it's location is is imperative it really is location is imperative i mean universal pre-k expansion full day program is is where it begins it's our foundation and i think the location we there's got to be closer areas that are programs that participate that have up you know universal pre-kindergarten it's got to be close to right you know the area of our school district right i don't want it not to cut you off but we don't

136want to also just add names on here just to say we to check off a box if we know that the max is 20 we should really be looking into place locations that's like we've been saying that's accessible to our families um because then it defeats the whole purpose of being an expansion because we're really not expanding right so the location that was awarded already has a upk class with 18 it's a full class they have 18 um east rimappo students already that is in addition to the to the 15 students that they had from the expansion class so they're already a part of the of the east ramapo upk family and they're full i guess to my point so is um i'm just thinking about the the families that probably would have had the

137opportunity to have their child signed up but probably can and those kids are home because of the location and because of the fact that we didn't look into having something closer now we have to settle for seven out of 20 as opposed to you know in the past we used to have waiting lists for what we had locally right so the expansion grant is 40 students it's just 40 students we still have the upk that we had before which is over 200 full day students right um and now we have an additional full day slots that we're looking for space in the community for that third upk grant so once again what are we doing to do what are we doing in terms of outreach to the upk listings that we already have that is

138located within our district right we're going to be publishing another rfp so are we doing this little by little why aren't we just doing one rfp because this the expansion grant and the funding system that it is that that it's a part of is unique it's not like the first grant that we got the five million nor is it like the additional 969 students it's a it's funded with a different scheme from the state so it's it has to have its own budget codes um it's ju in it it has to be separated from by according to state ed by uh from the other but upk so that's still 969 uh space available to add students right in the third allotment of students that we have from what is that to have students enrolled by

139september i think i'm so that's what i'm saying so why are we doing it within groups why are we not doing it together it's the same funding right but it's it's not quite the same funding right so the expansion grant for these 40 students is a unique grant that was allocated that was awarded to the district it was a competitive grant that is separate and apart from everything else that's the 40. what about the rest right so now we're looking for additional sites we have enough students to fill the slots that we have for upk right now that have enrolled and now we are sending out an rfp for additional sites to get more students by tapping into what we have already there those we are already partnered with absolutely and and even more when

140you send out an rfp it is for anyone in the public that can qualify to apply for it to apply so it's not being addressed to to certain sites dr shanahan just for um clarification the kids net child care program rockland county the other three they didn't make it no they did not because of some 20 questions they didn't make it right but the the questions were asking them about the essential and fundamental components of the upk program so do they not quali they didn't qualify the the reviewers did not have as much confidence that these that those three centers could do the work as represented in the proposal as the other two sites no disrespect but how did you come up with that they didn't they didn't have the confidence from the criteria that

141we were looking at so for example if we asked them about their the curriculum the only thing we had to go on was their response about the curriculum so if they responded uh simply that they have that they follow the creative curriculum period we don't we didn't have a lot of information to go on about what that actually looks like in the class whereas some others really went into detail about what the teachers bring to the curriculum what it looks like what the students do how they engage the materials that they use so it painted a much fuller richer picture of what was going to happen in the upk class i just i do have to express that my frustration with this is how crazy it looks it looks crazy because we have these three

142child care centers centered right here in east ramapo literally as a community dr ellis was just at one of the graduations so hold on dr ellis was just at one of the graduations so this is my frustration he was just at one of the graduations shaking hands with all these students so now they didn't date according to i guess your expertise they didn't make the they didn't make the cut it just looks crazy and i also feel like it continuously shows how black and brown students continuously get the short end of the stick and then not to mention they didn't make the cut but were able to lease they didn't like i don't i don't get it like where is where like where is that like i'm really frustrated so these centers are because like

143where's the balance right these centers are currently a part of our our upk i totally get that but i mean as far as a radius though as far as the radius goes so how is it that for example kidsnet we're a partner with them now we've been for years so how is it that they're able to service the kids that they have now but can't service another students is the criteria the questions that they were asked is that part of um being awarded um the pro is that part of the proposal is that something that the district came up with right and if it's and if the district came up with it what was the purpose because it's not like this is an outside um organization program that we haven't dealt with because that we've

144been dealing with them for years for example right right the state strongly recommends that the district issue an rfp when there are extra sites needed in extra seats to be awarded to the community the only fair way to do it is to issue an rfp that asks the proposers to explain their program in a fair way answer these questions provide whatever documentation illustrations and examples that they can to show us that to give us a good confident sense of their the their program the strength of their program we have uh reviewers that look at the each proposal and they follow the same criteria objectively and they they rate on a scale the uh the responses to each one of these questions it is this is the process that the state may be a little bit

145short of mandates but strongly strongly recommends in a recent review the state had of our upk program they strongly recommended that we issue an rfp for this and for the new seats because it is the fairest program so if you know a person in one site or another one how is that the fairest way to to provide a new provide a contract to to this site we felt that this was the fairest way it was the most objective way and all these other sites would still be a part of the upk community they would still have the upk seats they just wouldn't have these extra 20 seats in one classroom from this unique funding source i'm sorry who are the reviewers like you keep saying reviewers who are they myself uh the two staff people

146from the upk office um miss iwaha and um miss um um andriello uh ellen angelo who is the new executive director of illinois you know because all these programs that i'm looking at kids nets um chrysler rocklin child care and learning center they all have state guidelines that they have to abide by you know what i mean in past they do they have state wrecks so i don't understand how are they not passing with us when they're passing all their state wrecks right they all five sites did they they all met those criteria yes i'm sorry see the lesson you said again all five sites are active uh upk sites that meet the criteria requirements right they do what we the only thing we had to go on was how they described what they would

147do in this program based on the criteria that we issued so are you saying based on their their response the students that they're servicing that they're not capable of servicing them no i'm not saying that at all saying that there were some sites that developed a a richer deeper uh picture for us to so we could really envision what the educational experience of the children at those sites would look like so the ones that did not get it so we didn't get that picture from them what are these two sites providing that's more beneficial to our students than the other three well i would say overall it would just be the quality of the of the program was look when you're reviewing the only thing we had to go to be fair the only thing

148that we could go on was their proposal so it was up to them to provide the information that that we were looking for in that proposal so we they could get a high score that's just how the rfp process works so what are we what are we doing to help once again the programs that we do have that's located within our district what are we doing to help them better service our children so that if or if or when proposals like this come up again that they meet the requirements so that our students are staying within as opposed to having to travel or not being able to attend upk at all because of the distance so the upk staff monitors each upk site four times a year right each time it's with a different purpose

149one of the sites that was not selected we gave special attention to and this was in a design that was in collaboration with state ed by visiting this site weekly because this site at the at the beginning part of the year did not have a certified teacher so the state we negotiated with the state that we would provide technical assistance to this site by visiting them weekly and taking notes and then sharing those notes with state ed so that was from the very beginning of this year so and we saw that this site the the program grew the the the teacher learned a lot from the staff that visited the site it's it's very labor intensive so that's and that was a unique situation right all the other sites do have a certified teacher but

150nonetheless we visit them four times a year so if i understand correctly we're going to do another rfp those respondents can re-respond absolutely you can flesh out the response more completely absolutely and the requirement that they have one classroom for 20 students it doesn't hold for the for the new rfp they can uh they they could say they have a class where five students could be upk students and then 15 could be from parents paying some kind of tuition and that's fine right it's the it was just the uniqueness of this funding source that required us to have a certain kind of rfp with certain stipulations so i don't think we recently hired somebody to reach out to the community to help them recruit right and a couple board meetings ago we we brought on

151we contracted the board approved this a co we contracted with an individual to spend time in the community going to churches to meeting halls not just bringing pamphlets to the um to the sites but actually meeting with parents and educating them not just on the the availability of upk but on the the importance of upk the importance of starting your child at four years old in the educational system but the issue here is not the outreach to the community to get students the issue here is the location that is being chosen i guess by you and the committee for these students to attend right i mean the outreach means nothing if the students can't make it there right but i will say that the the sites already are part of the upk program and they

152have classes that are full um there was a there was a question that i asked i don't think it was answered the questions that were asked was that did those questions come from the district or was that part of the proposal from they were part of criteria that upk sites must meet in order to be a upk site so the teacher certifications and resumes description of the curriculum were those 20 questions also asked to the programs we all already have in place no this is only part of the rfp for the expansion grant so it's specific to the expansion grant the criteria no this it's their their criteria for all upk programs we will look at these questions for the next rfp that we're going to be issuing but the sites that we have right

153now we have just been grandfathered in that we've been working with them we know what they do we've documented what they do they have certified teachers they attend our professional development that we give at least twice a year so these when you approve the contracts for upk every year the templates those contracts are for these grandfathered in programs now that we have more seats we need to find either more slots in these programs or more sites with new slots for students so that's why we're going to be issuing this next rfp but we had to take care of this funding source first and the expansion grant funding came before the new 969 students we didn't know about that at the time we were doing the expansion grant the sites so are these other sites that

154we have um i'm not sure how many sites we have total are they i'm sorry about 50. are all of them aware of this criteria for this funding to know oh they'll meet the criteria i'm sorry they meet the criteria but you just said the three here don't meet it i said that they they might well one of them did not answer many of the questions so we don't know that we had to there was just no information provided but we do know that that site is a site that we've been working a lot with and they i mean they couldn't be a upk site if they didn't have the basic documentation and all the other requirements they have to have that the rfp purpose is to level the playing field so everybody's equal it

155doesn't matter what experience you personally have with a site you're looking your lens treats everybody equally and you're looking merely at the criteria and how they respond to the questions so for rfp purposes the other 50 the 50 sites that we have are there are they aware of the criteria that need to be met that these three failed to meet to be considered as a location and if not what are we doing to let them know that you know in order to meet the criteria these are the criteria because if you're saying that we have space available and half of them don't meet the 20 questions with the criteria that are in place where are we going to put all these students right right so we don't we don't contract with any site that does

156not meet these criteria at a minimal level what we were looking for in this rfp was an exceptional level was something that is above just meeting the criteria but but sites that had very rich dynamic learning experiences that they were designing for the students so it's not about just meeting the criteria it's it's a matter of the quality like how how well do they meet the criteria if we find in our 50 sites that a school is lagging in something that that is pretty important we provide technical assistance and professional development to them if it is if they don't improve or if they don't meet our expectations we don't contract with them in the future but we've been contracting with these programs because they've met our criteria requirements they're i'm assuming highly qualified with the

157work that they do so i guess the point that i want to make to you is that the way it sounds to me is that for example once again kidsnet um [Music] i guess the quality the quality of their program were good up until the point that we had these we had this expanded um opening right so kid's net if i mean really quickly this is this what we're talking about now we're getting into an implementation issue not necessarily a board issue but what happened was the the the rfp was was shared in in a fair manner and everyone had an opportunity to apply to the best of their ability so i know what you're asking for what you're stating is that you know what are we doing to you know for our hallmark programs

158that we know are stalwarts in the community how are we um supporting them in a way that they could ascertain these these ongoing rfps and grants to further enhance their program serve the community of spring valley proper where it's more accessible in terms of transportation so that's the implementation issue so what we will do we can we can get together um and see how we can bring people in for you know um writing or writing assistance or just how to enhance show them exemplar uh type of rfps from similar grants i mean we can't show them the same ones from their competition but we can show them examples of similar rfps well that's now that we have this criteria in place what i was saying because we had the same issue as i mentioned the

159last time there was a i guess rfp put out where two schools were put on were chosen that were not within the district so i i just want to make sure that you know when we do send out these rfps that we're also reaching out to the 50 schools programs that we have uh within our district to see if they meet the agreement agreed although this grant if i'm not mistaken was for rockland county so that was part of the challenge as well well it was for the the district um and it was for um uh district resident upk students i'm sorry district residents themselves students like downtown spring valley no i'm talking about east rampo district okay yeah i'm talking about the 50 i believe the 50 sites that we have are located within

160the district correct for the most part besides for the most part there are a couple that are outside the district but we have very few students at those but the students who are there the location are um east ramapos students correct so what i'm saying is to reach out to those that are within the district moving forward i know that was a discussion last time and i'm just saying it again and i completely do an outreach to that almost like a serve list send it directly to them correct and and if there is 20 questions or criterias that needs to be met that um for whatever reason um they should be aware of that you know these are the criterias i mean they shouldn't be blindsided and be told last minute that in order for

161you to be approved uh you know you have to meet these cr requirements that they probably had no so as a point of clarification um the requirements are within the bit specs there was no blind siding we went through a formal process we followed general municipal law we administered an rfp we had a rubric that was included in the rfp bid specs so potential bidders were very clear on what the requirements were how they were being judged on their submission as dr shanahan stated previously some of the bidders that were not awarded failed to provide critical information that was part of the rubric and so we we followed a process that was very streamlined and very organized and we scored it appropriately and in accordance the general municipal law just a minor question is it

162allowed to select a different provider even if they scored um less if it's centrally located or something like that it would depend on the weighted average for that particular component we purposely added that section because we wanted to attract vendors that were accessible to our community but but it was very it's very clearly stated what the criteria is and and the manner in which potential bidders would be scored okay and um mr gruber mike please what appears from some of the board members is they would rather look at location than certain qualities the question is if that's a possibility to have that as a higher number when you accept a bidder so it's a possibility to be part of the criteria but what we have to be mindful of is there are certain criterias that

163are necessary in order to be eligible to be a an approved upk program there's something called the qap that happens yearly where the upk program these are federal federally funded dollars that's another important thing to to note so there's more oversight on the upk funding than other typical programs that we run and so we have what's called a qap the state comes in periodically and they do site visits and much of what they look for are that criteria is built into the rfp because we want to ensure that if we're giving an award and we're um you know passing through federal dollars to a particular vendor that they've met the criteria and that we won't get into a situation where they're we're being cited for particular matters that are included in the in the qap

164the quality assurance um program that they put out and as an oversight for districts okay i think the the last thing number seven um [Music] can someone explain the purpose of the six additional county maps also looking at the attachment um it shows that the quote was prepared on march 14 2020 uh 2022 and that the prices are valid until june 12 2022. so can that be explained sure um so tyler technologies is the company that supports our routing software versa trans one of the things that we've been trying to do is account for the real-time traffic in rockland county is specifically in spring valley to make sure that when we're routing students what we think or what the system thinks is a 12-minute drive for those who live here they know that sometimes that

165really is a 20-minute driver a 30-minute drive and in order for the system to calculate that you need to recalibrate we also have a good amount of students that we transport outside of rockland county due to ieps and other matters so what we wanted to do is calibrate the system one time and make sure that we had all of the counties that we currently transport to updated in the software so that we can take into account that real-time travel time and so this was prepared a few months ago we wanted to be mindful of the budget and include this in the subsequent years budget which is why it's being presented today so that it's included in the 2223 budget but it also says on the top prices are valid until june 12 2022 or in

166july now so does that change anything we have confirmed with that we had explained to them at the time that we wanted to include this in the subsequent years budget and we received agreement from them so no it will not change linda uh sorry mrs macias the only question i do have or just a concern is we weren't able to utilize we weren't able to utilize tyler granted we did have it for the previous school year we weren't able to utilize tyler because i know a lot of families didn't have um transportation so like i wasn't even able to utilize um the app so what could we see differently happen this year you're going to see a completely different um level of support for families even with the transportation yes so i'd love to explain

167a little bit more about why you weren't able as a parent why you weren't able to utilize the app and why you will be able to utilize the app this year everything in the system is data driven we usually say garbage in garbage out if you're not ensuring that the data has been scrubbed and that it's usable then you won't be able to support the different apps that are accessible to the community and so what we've done ms silva and her team have done an extraordinary job at scrubbing the data and making sure that we have accurate counts for both public and non-public students and we're also working diligently with our vendors to make sure that we have gps data so that when you pull up your my stop app you'll be able to see

168where your buses and um your stops and so forth thank you mr missiles okay we have a motion and a second all those in favor say aye i believe the motion was to be amended which one are we amending three for the uh to amend item four to be 2223 school year okay so item four will be an amended to the 22 and 23 that's 22 20 it looks like it was corrected i i put the correction in but you do need the motion i'll make a motion to add the amended item but it's showing this now do we still do we need to make a motion or do we not need that mr gerhart do we need to make a separate motion for the amendment that was just added or no but it was

169changed before we even voted on it to make the amendment so clearly the intent is 22-23 school year the fact that it was amended real time while we're talking about it is a little odd so why don't we just clarify that the board is voting on this for the 22-23 school year whether it's an amended motion or whether it's part of the existing motion i'm not really sure because as we look at it right now real time it's correct okay so technically we probably should have set an amendment and then reflect that so amended for the 22-23 school year i think we're all an understanding that that's the case okay we have a motion and a second wait are we amending or no as we say as amended as amended we have a motion i

170have as amended right i said on 17 i wanted to add that addendum to the lease and it's not currently there would that need to be it's an attachment to the resolution what was that i i heard i we can add that i heard you say for the future so i took that to me not including this one but i'd want to edit this one as well yeah i we can certainly do that right as a point of clarification mr grossman we usually provide um an invoice to the camps we have historically and i've prepared one for this agreement as well and it gives a line item detailed when we start when we end the number of hours the number of days the cost per line um and the the the vendor will receive that

171as almost like a receipt for what they're paying okay yeah so it's indeed part of the contract sure so so it's so it's included sort of de facto included though it's not in the lease itself i didn't do it okay let's try this again we have a motion and a second all those in favor say aye aye anyone opposed or abstain yes no to number 11 and 17 any other no sherry mcgill as well 11 and 17. yes and the same for me but i'll just add for 17 that um based on the conversation once again that we had about the policies being put in place before we started renting i would have loved seeing that implemented before we actually started renting the facilities thank you and also added for number 11 the fact that

172yes i agree with upk that's the foundation it starts with our babies however i have a problem still with the location thank you motion carries information and reports from the board yes i do have an information and report from the board i'll make the motion we don't need a motion for that question is it possible in regards to the upk that i know that it was brought up that we did we weren't in contract with the individual but is it also possible to have a community committee in regards to i guess a criteria for the upk if that kind of makes sense or if you want me to write it down in writing what we can't have a community committee because if you look on the committee i guess like if when dr shanahan said

173there was a committee i'm guessing if you look on the committee committee i guess is it possible to act community members that's what i mean to say let me clarify it so for a committee say an advisory committee for yeah yeah we actually don't have that right this is just the review of the proposal review committee but that would be terrific absolutely okay thank you dr shanahan yeah thank you you said the feds i forgot to ask this one question before we go on um um you might have answered it already when will the freshman academy start at ramapo i didn't hear that maybe i just need to write it down i don't think i said it you did okay when is that starting on july 25th and to your point before we will update

174um that was a omission on our part with the planning but we will update the the site the websites reflect the two new programs but both programs are starting july 25th to august 11th and it's from 8 30 to 12 30. at 8 30 to 12 30. and and one thing was there a reason you know what is it is there a reason why we took it from spring valley i know that you had the credit recovery it was about timing time and ucl because our goal was to use each building and it was about timing so the the credit attainment summer esy was already established we weren't so that was placed first in one of the three buildings and then we had two remaining buildings ramapo and then eldorado so by that time the

175spring valley had a summer credit detainment of recovery had identified the rooms etc that they would be using the program the principals had been you know working on that so we had two remaining buildings understanding that it happens that the program director was i believe approved today so now we can move forward with that program director um for freshman academy being at ramapo and then um leaders among us at el dorado all right thank you so much no problem i'd like to add one more thing that kind of got lost in the shuffle i think and that's that many of us were able to attend the graduations of radical high school and spring valley high school and rain held off pretty much it was a wonderful day at clover stadium not boulder stadium and um

176we should continue to see all the kids graduate and continue onward you know what mr um grossman i'm glad you mentioned that um it was a great day and it's true what i i hopefully for the future i know we have a new president uh maybe perhaps we can get monthly events that's happening within the school district you know at the schools you know in september so that board members all board members not some but all board members know what's going on in terms of activities and events that our children are participating in thank you thank you future meeting dates the next regular meeting is scheduled for tuesday august 2nd 2022 beginning at 7 30 p.m at the plcc administration building in new york that's over here um i'll now like to make a motion

177to enter executive session to discuss uh an updates on contract negotiations and receive advice from council and we do expect action following the executive session thank you kathy do i have a second sec miss charles pierre all those in favor say aye aye anyone oppose or abstain motion carries thank you i miss mr rose before we break yeah go ahead i just want to also extend thanks to mr y weiss mandel he wasn't at the last couple of meetings yes i would like to i forgot about multiple years i would like to thank president and on the board and his service to the community is should be repaid many times over and is very much appreciated amen thank you i concur with everything you said mr grossman thank you i'm still in here um kathy

178are we ready not yet we live okay i'd like to call this meeting back to order we do have a motion miss kiwi now be ready thank you a motion that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the board of education approves and authorizes the board president certain absent the vice president and the superintendent of schools to sign the memorandum agreement with east ramapo building administrators association urba i'll move that segregation from new collective bargaining agreement for july 122 to june 30 2026 in accordance with the moa i moved it second by miss mcgill all in favor say aye aye anyone opposed obtain motion carries okay we have a couple of motions and then after we finish with that if we can take a vote for public comment and we can open it back

179up uh motion that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the board of education approves and authorizes the board president or in his absence the vice president and the superintendent of schools to sign the memorandum of agreement with the east ramapo teachers association regarding guidance counselors for summer 2022. does anybody like to make a motion second motion moved by mr weissmandel second by ms mcgill any discussion no discussion on the matter any all in favor say i i anyone oppose abstain motion carry i'm sorry we have a now do we have a no by mr grossman motion that upon the recommendation of the superintendent of schools the board of education approves and authorizes the board president or in his absence the vice president and the superintendent of schools to sign the memorandum agreement with

180the east ramapo custodial association for a one-time rollover or payoutification time in accordance with the moa i'll move the motion is there any second second second by miguel miss mcgill all those in favor say aye aye anyone opposes abstain motion carries before we move on i want to say congratulations to our building administrators administrators and our teachers and thank you for all that you do i know it's been a very rough couple of years and you know this is well deserved for all of you and just thank you for all that you do for our children building administrators teachers staff whether it be guidance counselor custodians we thank all of you nurses from the bottom of our hearts thank you thank you thank you well said i definitely agree with my two colleagues do we

181have one more all right a motion to drop the following resolution whereas the district and the east ramapo teachers association urda are parties to a valid and binding collective bargaining agreement and whereas the district and urta have agreed to terms of a memo of agreement related to a ch change salary for the 2021-22 school year moa is will be attached to this and now therefore be it resolved that the board of education of the east ramapos central school district here by one authorizes and approves entering into such moa and two authorizes superintendent ellis and or the board president to execute the moa i'd like to move on that one and i would like the second question did we do the teachers association which one is this one all right so this one's teachers teachers oh

182i'll second that i got that one already sorry okay then i thought we did teachers earlier yeah noah's guidance the guidance and it was second by mrs girl by mrs mcgill now moved by mr berkowitz secretary clinton by miguel by mr weiss mandel by mr weissmann miguel and miguel in unison all those in favor say aye aye anyone opposed abstain you have a no motion carries just to confirm that was a total of four agreements correct i'd like to make a motion to reopen the public comment none of our the administrators move move by miss charles pierre second campaign mike thank you everyone um i just want to say personally thank you to my executive cabinet here with miss smith mr foreman miss wilmeth miss ortiz and absent tonight is miss polanco but i just

183want to say thank you for all the support and just for being here as a you know as executive cabinet for our urban membership and i also want to take this time to personally thank the school board for supporting us in this contract negotiations um as everyone knows it's been challenging as mr p miss charles pierre said it absolutely has but what i want to say to you is just thank you for being there and supporting us and mostly for me at this point i've gotten an opportunity to get to know dr ellis this year and he's been nothing but supportive of our unit and i just want to say thank you doc you've kept your word and we really appreciate what you're trying to do and all the efforts that you put in but

184more importantly and again thank you school board for being here for our children and being there for us as well and if there's anything that we can do to continue to grow our product just let us know we're there but thank you thank you thank you thank you very much [Applause] okay now i would like to make a motion to adjourn this meeting move by miss charles pierre seconded by mr grossman all of the favors say aye and or the polls