001sweet moment the relationships I have cultivated will not be forgotten the faculty and staff here here at elmford are by far the best I have ever worked with they truly understand that children are more than just a data point they are human beings that is not to say that data isn't important but the children here have unique needs and appreciate being treated as children the students here are a very warm and compassionate group for example when I was using my Walker without fail youngsters would stop me to ask if I needed assistance that compassion for another human being is instilled within these children through the parents who raised them so I thank the parents eler has has afforded me the opportunity to partake in many roles from Acting Superintendent all the way through principal and
002a lot in between hopefully I completed each task assigned to me successfully at the age of 70 and with close to 35 years under my belt it is time for me to open up a new chapter in my life for the years I have left I am devoted 100% to my family my family has supported me throughout my career they've been there in good times and B and that's evidenced by the fact that they're all sitting in that back row right now they're ensuring that I don't change my mind I owe them big time in closing I was one as I was once asked to name a song that describes my life and that was an easy task for those of you who remember Frank Sinatra My Way that describes my journey to a te
003regrets I've had a few but then again too few to mention I did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption I planned each chartered course each careful step along the byway and more much more than that I did it my way and for those who know me know that I do everything my way so in closing elmford I thank you for being a huge and wonderful part of my life God bless now she doesn't have to take the school bus anymore thank you for that amazing presentation and I love your speech thank you um I've got a few words to say but I'm going to say it in a few minutes all right um so we're going to go to uh uh number nine approval of the minutes do I have
004a motion to approve the minutes uh which is 9.01 through 9.02 motion second second all in favor I opposed motion carries we're going to do a recognition of the audience it's 20 minutes S 3 minutes each um and The Time Is Now 9:42 and uh we're opening up the floor to anyone who has questions or comments um to come forward Justin do you have this hey everybody this is probably going to be longer than 3 minutes but believe that it's worth it um good evening my name is Lori uh debellis I live here in elmford my daughter is Rihanna Willis she's an eighth grade um student here at Hamilton and she is medically disabled she has a type 1 diabetic um resources have not been great for her um I should say resources have been
005okay but the teachers or some of the teachers are not doing what they need to she has a 504 okay that's in place for medical reasons and for her health health and safety and to ensure her education at the same time well it's not being done well I should say it's not being followed by some teachers okay she has open access to her cell phone at all times that delivers her insulin so she could stay alive um that tells her what her sugar is 247 and that gives her direct access to me and I make all of her diabetic decisions as far as her care is concerned um so there are things like a teacher harassing her about being on the phone or having the phone in her hand to the point where she doesn't
006want to keep it in her hand anymore so guess what she can go from very normal range sugars to DEC defying low sugars in a matter of minutes now she's out on the floor and no one can take care of her because they don't know what to do and I'm not there so that doesn't that doesn't help but because this teacher is consistently harassing her she now feels um like like she can't have her phone out and that's ridiculous because if something happens to my daughter it's going to really um be a difficult situation at that point um there also is the reteaching of material when my daughter comes back from being sick diabetes is an autoimmune disease okay she takes it takes her about 10 if not a 100 times longer to get better
007than it does anybody else for a common C for example at the end of December she had Corona virus RSV and walking pneumonia all at the same time she was home extremely sick and she was out for about two weeks she comes back to a teacher that not only doesn't want to retach her the information and is complaining meanwhile that is his job and what he gets paid for however he fails her at an assignment that was given when she was out and she asked for um some help or asked him you know make a ask a question and he said no I'm not helping anybody that was his response now now he never pulled my daughter aside never said this is what you missed and don't tell me in two weeks you missed nothing
008or she did you know she didn't miss anything that's ridiculous there were no assignments there were it's it's unheard of and if our our teachers are not giving something to do in two weeks that's a problem in itself I was a teacher for 10 years I don't know how you can go through two weeks without having an assignment doesn't make any sense so he also um I'm sorry the gym teacher also went to fail her because she didn't hand in a crossword puzzle when she was out sick because she missed more than four I'm sorry am I interrupting no I'm writing down gym teacher no I'm the phone slide I see it so the gym teacher is trying to fail her from a 95 to a 61 because she didn't hand in a crossw word
009puzzle now that to me is ridiculous my daughter is on two of the teams here she's on softball she's on volleyball and this is all being a type 1 diabetic and she gave her entire season of basketball because I won't let her play basketball because the circulation in her legs are horrible and they you know they cramp up they it's not it's not the sport for her but she really wants to play so what did she do she dedicated the whole season her her time to the whole season she was at all of the um practices she went to all of the games home and away and she became the team manager so I heard so she was the team manager and you're telling me my daughter doesn't do enough that you want a crossw
010puzzle and then I want to know how much is that crossw word puzzle worth from a 95 which what she would have had to a 61 how please break it down because what's the you know what's the layout of um grading here because obviously something's off that if a crosswood puzzle is worth that many points so not all teachers some of them are great um Joanne I've worked with for a long time I'm really really really upset to see her leave um Mrs Florio there are a lot of people that know me for a very long time my son graduated in 20123 I've been in this District a long time so just to end to let you guys know I have placed a formal complaint with the Department of Justice and the American Disability Administration
011on the district um they asked that I name specific people so I did I gave the names um the interim principal has been in my opinion useless uh not doing a thing as a matter of fact what really upset me is when I met with uh the superintendent yesterday I believe it was um she had no idea about what was going on with my daughter this has been going on for over a month how can you not know you're the superintendent of the district and you don't know that there's a child with a disability that is not you know your staff is not following her 504 and you don't know about it like there's a problem there where's the breakdown so now my daughter has to reap what happens in front of all of the
012students things that are being said I sent an email out there were two teachers talking about that email in front of my daughter and the entire class did you see what Lori sent out going on and on what is going on here I'm going to make sure that the community is fully aware of what's going on in this District I'm going to talk about the budget I'm going to talk about all of that um I'm just going to make sure everybody knows what Elmsford is about and it's a shame because when Joe is here and Mark bako was here this place was you couldn't beat it and now it's a disaster so I hope you guys get it together and um we'll see what happens with the uh Department of Justice okay thanks have a
013good night I got it from here okay if uh that's it we're going to move on to purchasing and finance which is item number [Music] 11 um which takes us 11.01 through 11.06 do I have a motion to approve all in favor second second I second all in favor I oppos okay motion carries moves us to superintendent personal recommendations instructional 13.01 I mean 12.01 through 12.0 six to approve some move second all favor I opposed motion carries um 13 superintendent personal recommendations non instructional motion to approve that's 13.01 second second all in favor motion carries opposed no um so before I go to 14 um I'm going to step back uh to our PTSA do we have PTSA here who wants to give an update hi so I thought we had here so we're going
014to do a pts update and then we're going to come back to item number [Music] good evening my name is anaise Valerio PTSA president and I have some updates for you this evening all righty so um through our PTSA social media channels and through memberhub we've shared our PTSA scholarship for this school year it's $500 for Hamilton seniors so we encourage you to identify seniors who are interested in taking part in the scholarship application it's a great opportunity our Scholastic Book Fair it's going to be taking place on Monday March 31st through Thursday April 3rd do I have my dates right here let me just double check yeah so that Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday that final week of March is our PTSA Scholastic Book Fair so we encourage you to use our volunteer Google
015form link to sign up right now we have a lot of volunteers for Dixon and two for Grady so we want to get those numbers up for Grady the PTSA donated $500 to the D Grady drama club so we're really excited about that and hope we continue to support the building we've just released do our social media channels um and we'll share on memberhub tomorrow a Google form for voting for upcoming events there's 16 weeks of the school year left and we actually in Our member meeting this evening apologies for us being a little late we're talking about what kind of events we'd like to have for the rest of the school year so please use the Google form that we've shared um to vote on not only events but to committees to help lift
016the events that we want to share with the community on Wednesday March 19th we'll be hosting a know your rights event Our Hope was to have it take place in the Hamilton Auditorium but the drama club has that space booked so hopefully we can make Grady our home that evening this event is an important event it's to inform the community about upcoming know your rights um this is for excuse me this is in collaboration with neighbors link neighbors linked is a nonprofit organization that supports immigrant families in Westchester County the event empowers families by providing legal knowledge to protect their rights empowering their safety and well-being if you visit the Elmsford PTSA Facebook and you look for the know your rights post um I've shared why we're doing this event and how it aligns with
017the national PTA Miss uh Mission I don't have enough time to unpack that now but there's definitely a correlation between facilitating a new your rights event for immigrant uh newcomer and mixed status families and the mission of the national PTA so I encourage you to go to our Facebook and check that out and on Friday February 28th we hosted a Black History Month event at Grady and it was a great success we had um a pretty awesome turnout we had dinner together um we had personal reflection time it was a beautiful event and just a reminder as to how grateful I am to be part of this team thank you thank you very much okay with that we're going to move to item number 14 and we have to add an addendum into that which
018I'm going to read which would be 14.09 which is resignation of uh principal of Carl L Dixon Primary School uh resolved at the board of education of elsur Union Free School District hereby accepts the resignation of sim gritsky uh principal of Dixon Primary School effective close of business March 15 2025 um then we have a denim uh 14.10 which is separation agreement uh resolved at the board of education of the Union prechool dist elmford Union preschool district hereby approves and authorizes the board of to execute a separation agreement and general release with employee it number 02270 uh signed by such the employee on March 4th 2025 and hereby authorizes the board president and superintendent of schools to take all actions consistent with the terms thereof uh brings us to 14.11 appointment intern principal Dixon Primary
019School resolved that the Board of Education of the mford Union Free School District approves the appointment of Ashley Cruz as interim Carl principal of Carl El Dixon Primary School affected March 16th at two of 2025 at AR of $100 per day um with that um also we did we take off the uh pre is that oh it's all good okay I would just say an additional $100 per day additional one okay so with that we're going to be voting on 14.01 through 14.11 um do I have a motion to approve motion second second all in favor uh opposed motion carries and with that I wanted to say something um when I first came to uh the board here uh it was uh tumultuous to say the least we had a lot going on we had
020a lot of uh different um pieces of the puzzle moving um and one person who is instrumental in um helping calm the nerves of someone who was new to the board um and also put some sanity to some of the things that um I couldn't quite understand was Joan doin and everything that I asked and I needed a lot when I came here and I was also told when um I came here that the person who wears the most hats in this district is this woman who sits here and whatever was ever asked of her um she stood up and she said I can do it um I remember going into her office and uh asking her saying I have this person who said they're going to be my intern superintendent and she looked at
021me and she goes that's funny that's impossible and I said huh um and she explained to me some things and and I asked her I said I need your help I said could you help me she she jokingly said I'm your second choice if you remember and I laughed and I said if I only knew I didn't have the choice of you and and this came to me through again a way that um I didn't think was very professional the way other people handled it but to come and find out that you know the person I needed to rely on was you again and you stood up and not only did you you you did it when I had no other option or our board didn't and you said whatever you need I got you
022and not only did you take that ball and run with it you did such a good job I can't I can't thank you enough for the guidance and professionalism that you brought to this District um it was by far one of the most memorable things that I've actually had happen since I've been here and you know we've gone through a lot in such a short period of time so it's with a heavy heart that I do accept 14.01 um because uh you are that rock that when I had a question and I didn't want to ask anybody else I would sneak into your office and ask you that question so um I am going to miss that um so there will be more to come um but with your speech I didn't want you walking
023out of here not knowing that you were going to be Miss beyond what you can probably fathom and to your family thank you for allowing her to be with us I said she is something special and cherish it because man you've got a good one um and your grandchildren are lucky so I wish you much success happiness and health um so pleas so this isn't this is not a good buy now so you're not going anywhere yet so as of tonight thank you for everything and we will have continue this conversation okay so with that I'm going to ask do I have a motion to adjourn motion second all in favor motion carries we arej have a good night everyone