001good morning i'll call the board good afternoon i'm sorry good evening even call the board meeting to order please join me for the pledge of allegiance and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all first item of business is the approval or revision of the agenda for this evening is there a motion to approve the agenda thank you sherry in a second for mark any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or abstaining next item 1.04 public comment i do understand we have an individual for public comment mr white right there cool okay so um here again about the same topic as i was here in september october and november or was it october november december um so 13 first document
002is 13 more brave fmhs students who decided they would risk for potential retaliation against them by putting their name on a petition stating that they believe that uh giving students zero grades for which is basically a triple f you know give three f's for a single infraction of lateness or some other sort of formatting mistake they don't think that's appropriate they think it's degrading so now we're at 39 and 39 students so far so my question is how many students do we need to see here before the board and the administration is going to take this matter seriously i mean some matters if you had 39 students coming forward to say they find something to be degrading and humiliating that would be enough to take action for the board so i just wonder what that
003number is going to be second thing is last time i was kind of had some pushback against me when i said that when people said well you know don't no we're not here to retaliate against students blah blah blah and i push back said you know respectfully saying that i think that you know that's mis guided if you will and the history of this district does not show that it's one that is open to students or parents or other people being able to state their mind about matters without being retaliated against and case in point is this actually this particular issue back in the november of october of 2016 i raised this issue with superintendent tice in an email and that's you'll see us here for right this year and within two weeks i received
004an anonymous letter sent to me by somebody in the district who works for the district basically telling me to you know know my place and to back down and stop being you know uppity or whatever the the communication was okay and that's and that's included in here also now you might be saying well i was five six years ago you know things have changed since then over overtures and so forth well the board is the board and administration has known about this later for four years that i received this letter in no time in the last four years i've ever seen i've received any sort of acknowledgement that that was in any way inappropriate that i should receive a letter like that not an apology not looking for an apology just no sort of communication
005from anyone administration boardwise or anybody stating that that in any way was inappropriate so therefore i conclude that this district is cool on retaliation and they find it fine because otherwise i would hear something so from this point forward if i am if i do hear something from the board or from the administration stating that we found it was inappropriate that you received a letter like that and that's not how that's how we operate as professionals if i receive something like that in writing to me i will then from that point forward refrain from referring to the students who signed their name to this petition as being students at risk of retaliation okay so make a deal on that one last thing it's been a year since i first item here well the year since
006i first raised the question and laid down the challenge to superintendent ice about potentially providing me with a some sort of best practices document regarding this regarding this matter okay a year has passed nothing's happened i've received no nobody's provided anything those provide any documentation that pro that giving students zero grades okay for lateness is in any way appropriate now remind you i'm saying mr white i just have to interrupt you because your time is up okay well i'd say good thing that this district has something appropriate for this okay it's a matter of this nature and that's the tri-state consortium all right so i seem to be one most motivated to take this on so i will reach out to the tri-state consortium and see if they have any best practices literature on this
007particular matter thank you mr white the board did have quite a lengthy discussion about this matter at our last board meeting and it is part of ongoing discussion in the district there isn't an answer for you yet but the matter is being taken seriously um if you have something that came from an individual in the district that we can know that came from our district then please make sure that we have that information anonymous letters they can come from anywhere so we can't respond to anonymous mail but i'm sorry that you did receive something from someone that was not done in a correct manner oh i don't get to respond to that or do i get response to that no no next on the agenda is the curriculum report uh dr coughlin and i was
008thinking oh thank you so uh good evening i'm just briefly here to introduce reintroduce jonah johnson a principal at mott road elementary who will be doing the professional learning uh report for the district this evening just as a reminder uh jonah this year assumed responsibilities as the interim assistant director for professional learning for the district and uh has assumed those responsibilities as well as her responsibilities as principal at mount road uh it's been a pleasure to work with uh jonah in this capacity this year it's obviously been a a very large task to assume all the planning and implementation for professional learning particularly during this pandemic period when there are a lot of needs so i really appreciate the work that janna has done this year and i'm going to turn it over to janna
009good evening and thank you to the board of education for the invitation to join you all to share the professional learning that has taken place at faithful manly us it is wonderful to have this opportunity to present all the ways our staff have continued to engage in professional learning at all levels since our last board report which hasn't been since the winter of 2019. i believe i have had the privilege of not only meeting many of you but chatting with you as as well at some point throughout my time here at fm as mary said for those of you i have not met or who are watching from the community i'm johnna johnson i'm very proud and privileged to be the principal of mott road and most recently in august appointed as the interim assistant
010director of k12 professional learning and ell programming my primary responsibilities remain as building principle but to be directly involved in the planning and implement implementation of professional learning amongst all k-12 staff including regular work with our instructional staff at large district curriculum council and our professional learning team will have helped to frame and plan each of the professional learning days we have had thus far this year i cannot begin to tell you what a privilege it has been to been afforded the opportunity to work alongside and learn from the expertise of dr coughlin and mrs amy evans and to gain a broad understanding of all that happens at fayetteville manly as related to curriculum and instruction as well as ell programming not only am i grateful to experience for the experience and expertise and collaboration
011amongst my administrative colleagues i am so incredibly impressed and humbled by the dedication commitment and tenacity displayed by our teachers and students every single day it has been a bumpy journey since march of 2020 a short time after the presentation you all heard and at this very moment we are still adjusting and preparing while we endure this omnicron surge and the impact it's having on our community and our ability to maintain a steady robust and meaningful educational experience for our kids i recall a few years leading up to the pandemic we had attended many sessions about future focused learning and future readiness and the ability to reach our students in a world that was advancing at such an accelerated pace we would watch these futuristic videos that had unheard of technology and means of communicating
012with others then suddenly in march 2020 educators were thrust into a situation where the growth that became necessary was so extraordinary that the system of of education was moving at a pace that was actually faster than what research or general society could keep up with in a matter of 48 hours educators across the country shifted from classroom learning to remote learning and then from remote learning to hybrid learning and then back to in-person learning after a global pandemic had left a lasting impression on the world and certainly our students the environment that we all thought was still in the distance literally fell in our laps in an instant i am privileged to call myself an educator and to share this space with all of the incredible dedicated professionals who commit themselves to this work each
013and every day in terms of professional learning and how we have viewed and measured our success over the years it has shifted a bit as everything else has while we may still quantify opportunities our instructional staff have engaged in in terms of graduate courses or conferences there have been so many other things that have taken place and that continue to take place day to day it just isn't possible to quantify all that is happening because there are so many small nuanced actions taking place throughout each and every day that are making significant impacts now we recognize lots has changed some good some bad but we also know we have engaged in an incredible amount of professional growth and learning out of necessity we have done so in order to connect with and engage our students
014given the uncertainty and instability the pandemic has caused i am eager to share with you the ways our instructional staff have engaged fayetteville manlias has a standing professional learning plan that is written and and submitted to new york state this is the statement for our professional learning plan which will be updated this year but it still speaks to exactly what we do each and every day to improve the quality of teaching and learning by ensuring that when teachers and leaders participate in substantial professional growth they have opportunities for professional or excuse me for professional learning they have opportunities for professional growth remain current with their profession and meet the learning needs of their students now what we've learned along the way is that that professional learning and professional growth are essentially one and the same
015one of our primary focuses or our main focus is the alignment of curriculum instruction with the new york state education standards there is a tremendous amount of work that has happened and continues to happen around these standards now you can see that some of the standards that have been implemented or are being implemented the uh the standards uh inception of it has already began or some of them are approaching full implementation by the end of june of 2022 for example the first being social studies going all the way down in almost every single content area there is work to do to align the standards the process is underway and there are expect expectations of standards adjustment refinement and in some cases totally rewriting curriculum for almost every single content area some timelines have required full
016implementation and despite current circumstances with the pandemic there are looming deadlines ahead this work is ongoing has been for some time and will continue throughout this year and moving forward one of the main assets of at fm excuse me is the professional learning team and i spoke to their work a little bit at the beginning of my introduction that we have a tremendous professional learning team here at fayetteville mainland it is made up made up of uh all instructional staff from the entire k-12 spectrum they are instrumental in communicating the needs and goals related to matters directly impacting professional learning so this year for example at our meetings we have regular frequent discussions about that that post pandemic impact and what we need to do to prepare for those professional learning days so that we
017make the most out of those days and provide our teachers with the with the tools that they need to be effective in their classrooms they also help to guide the titles and content related to in-service courses so they are suggesting topics letting us know areas that we need work in and then engaging in that conversation at the professional learning team meetings um they also communicate regularly with district curriculum council so there's usually a nice alignment between what the professional learning team is planning and then what the district curriculum council is also engaging in so that they may have conversations with their departments teams grade levels and so on so i'm going to break down our professional learning since 2019 into three phases as i mentioned we have phase one which is sort of that march
018of 2020 that immediate need to go to fully remote teaching and learning phase two being hybrid teaching and learning and then phase three was when we returned to five days in person that post phase one and two breaking it down this way because in reality while we may go to something like this and look at the ongoing professional learning opportunities that we have had long standing here at faithful manlias we now have these three phases of professional learning that have taken place that are really hard to measure and quantify as i mentioned before because there are so many small components that have gone into growing capacity in those areas so we have a tremendous opportunity for ctle credits new teacher orientation was conducted this year we still have a robust mentoring program we have had
019several professional learning days thus far which i'll speak to in a little bit we've had our first round of in-service courses this fall obviously there have been more since 2019 as well graduate courses are our staff are engaging in several graduate level courses in-service courses despite all that they have on their plates right now as well there's always faculty and department collaboration that is that's part of every day here at fm but it certainly has been part of our professional learning days our curriculum meetings we have uh instructional staff attending conferences and workshops and at some some times they're actually presenting at those conferences and workshops more virtual these days than not certainly we want to keep as many educators in our classrooms right now so that's definitely something we're cognizant of and the curriculum
020development that was on that very first side that's that standards alignment and curriculum that is a tremendous amount of work and the main chunk of the work that we are doing day-to-day many professional affiliations are afforded to us as educators here at fm and we are looking into more book studies k-12 and our community stakeholders which we've announced our next big read dana pierce at the high school has chosen a book to kick us off on january 25th it will be at the high school um it's a book called permission to feel by mark brackett the first session will be 6 30 to 8. i would recommend anybody read it i've actually just started just wrapping up the book myself and it's it's very practical and it's really well written so let's talk a little
021bit about these in-service courses this fall i just did a snapshot you could see some of the course titles from this fall so these there were 30 in-service courses just offered this past fall but just to give you a snapshot of what has happened since 2019 so really that presentation was november we look at january 2020 to june of 2022 this year there are some courses that continue throughout the spring we have a instructional staff taking 122 in-service courses now let's remember these courses are after school on the weekends people are giving up their own time to participate in this just so in these courses in the grand effort of raising the bar in their own classroom so it's a tremendous number given the circumstances we're all dealing with in addition to the in-service courses
022the graduate courses that our educators are still involved in so again a snapshot from that 2019 date so 2020 january of 2020 until january of 2022 right now 577 and a quarter graduate courses for our instructional staff again just impressive numbers when you look at something that's quantifiable so let's get into these three phases of professional learning that have taken place just to highlight some of the things that had to happen in a very quick manner this phase one of teaching and learning and certainly i've bulleted a few things but nothing that could capture all of the things that were taking place so initially like i said we had 48 hours to establish a consistent robust teaching platform and and consistent expectations on schoology amongst all of our instructional staff we had to figure out
023how to put assignments and come up with gradebooks that were all via technology you had to be able to access content materials make adaptations to paperless have fully remote access you have to learn to transfer your class structurals and content into technology plans for platforms that were certainly diversified by level seesaw at the k1 level is very different than a flipped classroom using blackboard or google classroom at the secondary level so it's multiple differentiated opportunities for educators to learn and implement tools that will allow them to connect with their students in a completely remote situation and our resource teachers and technology teachers are tremendous i can't even praise them enough for the work that they do and their expertise they were you know jumped right in adapting curriculum having regular meetings marcus de erso met
024with our entire staff every single wednesday giving them professional development opportunities again voices from our professional learning team and from our our instructional staff drove a lot of those meetings and topics what do you need so that you can reach your kids engagement was a huge word that we focused on we certainly wanted content to be accessible but we really were cognizant of making sure our students were engaged through that period of time we wanted to connect with them knowing that we were fully remote whoops so professional learning phase 2 so this is still that 20 20 20 21 this is when we came back into that hybrid platform so this is a whole different layer of teaching and learning um again marcus helped us with figuring out how to build a classroom community and
025how to reach your kids when you have half of your children in front of you and half of your children at home social emotional learning we had to really start to ramp up our knowledge base and start to implement some of our practices in a remote or hybrid setting wellness and mental health was certainly at the forefront of how we were trying to structure our classes and how we were trying to engage with our students management of double cohorts and trying to teach on screen while you have students in front of you is it is really an art it's not easy and our teachers did a tremendous job of keeping students in front of them engaged and students at home engaged and building those communities um having norms and expectations curricular adaptations um it's there
026was a shortened window of teaching each and every day which is staggered dismissals hybrid you know kids were here every single day we had to really narrow down the standards and skills at each grade level to assure that we were we were teaching exactly what we needed to teach and being as succinct as possible so that we were doing our due diligence and then that familiarity with the technology tools um there is a tremendous amount of technology and it's all wonderful and great if you know how to use it so technology is only a helpful tool when it when it when it actually aids the teaching and learning in your classroom and then this last phase of teaching and learning that really started last spring so that recalibration of returning to five days in person
027um obviously uh it was four days at the secondary level five days the elementary level but recalibrating and identifying the needs there were definitely academic needs and social emotional needs that presented as soon as kids started to return in person so it was recalibrating and identifying exactly what we needed to do to be able to adjust and meet the needs of our students um we still and did have ongoing regular collegial dialogue both in person remotely we talked about curriculum mapping we talked about adjusting to meeting learning gap needs personalization of the content and diversifying learning so that we were reaching every single student and we could really understand um that we were meeting kids where they were walking in the door identification of students who needed that social emotional support we've been able to
028put lots of things in place i'm thankful for the resources we have at faithful manly us we are helping a lot of kids each and every day whether it's academic through you know academic interventions or social emotional interventions we have a tremendous support system and we are um able to identify and help kids quickly so i'm thankful for that we've learned a lot about the impact of of the pandemic on student anxiety and mental health and stress and i'll talk a little bit about that moving forward so again talking a little bit about that as as colleagues and then establishing a foundational understanding amongst the k-12 staff uh around the culturally responsive sustaining education framework the crsc framework so the faithful managed professional learning days that we've had so far this year so we started
029off focusing on mental health with dr kevin ancho from syracuse university it focused on students mental health and anxiety given the impact of the pandemic dr angel was at fayetteville mainly us to give a keynote about three months prior to us um going fully remote in the pandemic so we had a nice opportunity to sort of capture anxiety and student anxiety pre-covered and that um and what was happening there and then sort of how the pandemic had shifted that anxiety for kids and what what was what he was seeing in in his clinic um the afternoon was spent uh dedicated to all the collaboration that we uh i just spoke about before in november we kicked off um with another great keynote mr mark van breddie who is in a similar position to dr coughlin
030in the east aurora union free school district um he introduced us to the disney leadership model which focuses really on creating a welcoming and affirming environment so you would think that it's um selling a marketing strategy for disney it is not it is about how disney really should have crashed and burned essentially as a company because they really focus on creating a welcoming environment for the people that come there people wouldn't spend all the money and stand in line for hours if they didn't feel good about being there when they were there we really spent a lot of time in the afternoon also recalibrating and spending some time engaged in wellness as staff so again going back to that first keynote with dr ancho and keeping wellness and well-being at the center but then moving
031into some of the crs conversation and that first principle of creating a welcoming and affirming environment we will have our next half day professional learning day in a few weeks we will continue with our wellness half day that we've had for years at fm so we will be putting those schedules out soon and then in the afternoon there's professional collaboration in the afternoon so there's ongoing professional learning related to the crs framework so we are all involved in opportunities that build capacity at multiple levels so there are two different book studies happening right now five practices for equity focused school leadership led by several professionals including one of our very own um dr george theoharis and then that book is a little bit more um related to the practical um practices and uh sort of
032that self-reflection related to diversity equity and inclusion um the call to unite is stories um real stories from different people who have different perspectives and experiences throughout the pandemic so very different reads um both very good for reflecting and and building capacity and understanding more about that the crs framework in general but also just creating that welcoming and affirming environment as a whole um we are also involved we have a nice relationship with boces we are working with dr catherine dalton and miss tanya rosado behringer we are having regular in-person dialogues we've been fortunate enough to be able to have these dialogues and trainings with our administrative cabinet as well as our district curriculum council we have our next one scheduled for this week it is a tremendous opportunity to be led by um catherine
033and tanya who are experts in this area and who have facilitated conversations with all of us our goal is to ensure that we have a foundational understanding amongst all of our instructional staff with the crs framework by our may professional development day so we have set some building level benchmarks between now and may our building principles will lead staff meetings and grade level team meetings around the crs framework to just build some familiarity and ensure that when we all walk in the door um on that may professional learning day that we have a common baseline to to work from um so again that work will continue in may so what are our next steps in terms of professional learning we will number one first and foremost prioritize the new york state standards within curricular alignment
034k-12 we will engage in summer curriculum projects that is a standing opportunity that we have here at fayetteville manlias a tremendous amount of work is done by our educators over the summer along with all year long but summer obviously lends itself to a little bit more flexibility continue to build sustainable practices and engage in dialogue around the crs framework one thing that we've certainly learned about diversity equity inclusion but mostly the crs framework which is culturally responsive sustaining education is that the work needs to be sustainable in order for it to be sustainable it has to be done in depth and meaningful and really you have to do it one conversation at a time in order to build that capacity we will always continue to research best practices and apply that current research to our
035everyday teaching and learning there is a lot of new research out whether it be related to response to intervention it could be related to the science of reading there is there are lots of things out there that will only help make us better as we move forward and then we're going to continue to analyze that building level data we are certainly seeing that our kids are in different places and we need to help personalize that instruction to identify every single child and every single individual profile that they have that we can then jump in as professionals and and provide them with the resources and structures that they need to be successful so that is an overview of our professional learning since november of um do you have any questions oh that's quite a bit it
036was quite a bit it's hard to not have quite a bit since the pandemic started right it's wonderful sounds very good um questions from the board comments from the board thank you i don't know where to begin totally fine it's okay thank you well thank you thank you very much we appreciate it exciting to hear about all these wonderful opportunities for our staff thank you thanks and next on the agenda is the president's report just want to remind everyone of our january 24th board retreat with dr daughton and on january 13th uh those board members who registered for the cny school board association slash ocm boces book study which is one of the books that um ms johnson just mentioned that will start on the 13th and there's five sessions i think you could still
037register if you have not had a chance to do so item 2.03 superintendent's report dr taish thank you president mims i've included the first of the two superintendent reports in board docs for your reference under the central new york school boards association update as we just talked about we have a number of board of education members participating in the book study with dr george theoharis it's a book that he had co-authored with a number of other individuals and it's also the same book as ms johnson just referenced that's being used by the administrative cabinet i think these initial efforts here will help to honor the first phase the culturally responsive sustaining education framework roadmap which is to raise awareness and that will be in advance of building capacity and implementation phases and as you would
038just indicated a second ago the board of education also has a dei workshop and retreat scheduled in a couple of weeks with dr daughton under strategic planning and capital improvement project updates our strategic planning continues to move forward especially with the recent passage of the community referendum for the capital improvement project at the high school this much needed project will address aging infrastructure needs in addition to programmatic improvements and classroom upgrades and enhancements some of our first planning meetings have taken place as we begin to engage the faculty in the schematic design planning process dr kilmer and i had the privilege of meeting with members of the faculty and the architectural team to begin the conversations regarding broadcast journalism technology and photography under upk update i'm pleased to report that we are planning to release
039the request for proposals to partner with an outside provider to offer universal pre-kindergarten services the rfp will be dispatched later this week with a due date of mid-february this will allow us to vet the prospective providers and to make awards during the budget development cycle sometime in april 2022 uh cinema took place this weekend it was virtual in nature given the pandemic i had the pleasure of attending the opening ceremonies and listening to the keynote address our student leaders did a wonderful job in laying the groundwork for this special annual event and then finally the district was host to the all county music festival and i'd certainly like to thank our talented instrumental and vocal music faculty for all of their efforts to help organize a successful in-person all-county music festival a number of our
040own student musicians performed in one of three mini concerts designed to maximize participation as well as social distancing the guest conductors who traveled from nearby and afar were very complementary of our own fm music program in addition for our efforts to host this in-person event this year because last year was cancelled that ends my initial um dr tyson i think it's next year's school board um convention it's going to be in syracuse here if it's if it's next year 23 or two is it the 23 oh so it's this year assistant this fall oh um so one of the things that they do at that convention is they highlight local music talent and i don't know what the deadline is but i think it's this probably the time that we could reach out if you
041know that's something that they're able to do and if it's something that our students would be able to and our teachers will be able to fit in their schedule um that would be amazing to have our students highlighted that conference because they always feature local school school performers any other questions for this part of dr tyson's report all right so move on to your covet update can you just speak to what the review process is going to be for the upk proposals i mean it's not really a dollar a dollar issue but so what's what's the intended process for that uh in terms of the rfp it speaks to the program you have to remember that even though with this outside partner the facility and the staff will be theirs it's our program we have
042to be able to supervise so there has to be obviously congruency in terms of our own kindergarten program so we are going to be looking yes at cost even though we're starting initially with the government funding which will fund about 84 slots so it probably will not be available to everybody it will have to be a lottery system but we certainly want to be able to assess the vibrancy of the organization the partner from the outside we will have to take a look at all aspects uh gosh forbid they were to go bankrupt mid-year we would still have to provide for those children so everything is outlined in the rfp in terms of trying to take a look at the big picture for that vendor but you're right we're starting small and then if it
043seems to work we'll expand or consider expanding going forward and then just a quick follow-up from our meeting last time in december um we did have a discussion after hannah raised the issue again mr white and hannah raised the issue about the assignment turn in at the morning deadline versus by the next class period has there been any discussion or movement or anything to speak to or address that issue we had talked about it internally we think it's focused in on one department but we haven't brought closure to that but we think it's ice one department any additional questions okay uh second part of dr tyson's report the covert update terms of the covet update as i always kid this sounds like the sports scores starting with the covet update and quarantine analysis as 2021
044ended and gave way to 2022 to date we have had 394 confirmed cases within the school district with 264 coming in the secondary level the middle and high school level and about half of that 130 at the elementary level ironically we witnessed 175 positive cases from the start of school until the beginning of the holiday recess period and since december 24th we have tallied positive cases with the recent covid surge as far as symptomatic update at this point in the school year the district has sent home 428 students because they were symptomatic this includes about 150 students at the high school about 59 students each at each of the middle schools and an average of about 53 children at each of the elementary buildings and again as you've heard me say before given the size
045of our enrollment as a school district i think this is testimonial to the hard work of all our families and it's still as important now during the surge to keep the children home if they are symptomatic as far as tests to stay we were recently awarded our licenses to serve as a limited service laboratory we are awaiting approval from onondaga county regarding our own testing protocols so that we're able to administer the rapid testing to students the county also said they will be providing the rapid antigen testing as well under contact tracing as you're aware onondaga county has moved away from the contact tracing to an attestation system accordingly as you know we've communicated this to our community at large and in addition even though we may be taking a hiatus from contact tracing at
046the local level until such a time when the surge subsides and it's reinstated at the county level we will still be completing the dashboard as the data becomes available under surveillance testing as mentioned earlier the county continues to collaborate with local area school districts to conduct random covid testing of students and employees since the inception of the program fm has sampled just under a thousand 987 individuals 783 students and about 204 faculty and staff and there's been two reported pooled positive cases most recently in last friday's quadrant biosciences laboratory results so we witnessed just this last friday 168 pool tests with faculty and staff making up 89 of those so we really opened it up to our staff and faculty as we even sent the kits home with our students as far as an on-site
047cobot vaccination clinic as mentioned before we've been partnering with onondaga county and kidney drug and we offered our second vaccination clinic the second dosage for that clinic was scheduled this past week tuesday january 4th at mott road elementary school and then last but not least the rapid covert test distribution i'd like to thank the building principles for their tireless efforts to distribute the testing kits to the classrooms we took delivery of the kits from boces courtesy of the governor's office on this a week ago from today and in less than a day we were able to turn them around and distribute them to our families it's our understanding that the governor may be sending more in fact rumor has it they arrived at boces today but about half the amount that was sent to the
048districts before so they will be delivered by boces courier either tomorrow or the day after so chances are we will not be sending them home with the students because we have only a fraction in this next pool that ends my report thank you dr tythe question for dr tyson oh sorry every question about the surveillance testing that we started at the beginning of the year and we were looking for volunteers how has the level of volunteerism changed or has there been a change throughout the year most recently because the kits that were sent by the governor we sent home to the families we've opened the surveillance testing to more faculty and staff who may have been interested so quite a few of them as i said 89 availed themselves most recently is this this is
049the uh this pooled saliva is that what we're talking about this is the pool saliva that's more accurate i remember at the beginning of the year we were you know the students were going to have to you know have their name randomly selected and we were concerned about you know they if we didn't get enough kids then the same children would be sampled every week and we didn't know if we'd have enough kids and all that has that worked out well it seems to have worked out well and like i said more staff availed themselves of it in fact mr gordon was up to the transportation center helping people register because they have to register ahead of time with quadrant biosciences in order to be in the system craig so i was wondering if you
050could brief the community you know obviously a lot of other districts have had problems staying open due to teachers being quarantined and bus drivers being in quarantine can you just kind of speak to overall kind of where our district sits kind of in that spectrum and if we were to close what plan and what type of notice parents might receive certainly staffing remains on the forefront we met as a district office team today and that was one of the main topics is i'd like to tell you we're we're chipping away at the strategic plan in january here but i think the goal is to stay open and staffing has been pretty close there have been days that we have been worried but so far we've been able to keep things operational and move forward so
051as soon as we sense that there may be a micro cluster we will try to give the families as much advance notice as possible i know there was an editorial in syracuse.com that indicated you know another area school district should have given as much advance warning as possible and that's difficult especially when illnesses are called in the night before but we will certainly try to do our job as best we can to give as much advance notice but it may just be uh you know if we lose if there's a tipping point just saying transportation if we lose the buses we've lost everything else just as an example sure and then i guess craig the follow-up to that is is that so the plan is is that the entire district would go remote or we
052would pick a certain building have you and the administrators discussed about how that might work yeah if it uh if it does transportation we would end up losing the entire entire district because we're not able to transport and same with food service or custodial maintenance but if it's a need for substitutes if it gives us a chance to do like some other districts have done close a building and reassign those substitutes to other buildings conceivably we could as an example keep the elementary schools operational and put the secondary schools on remote and again it depends on what we're dealing with great thanks it was heartwarming to hear that some of our administrators have actually jumped into lead classes when subs were not available craig i also just wanted to hear on the student side i
053mean you reported 219 cases since christmas eve i'm assuming that includes teachers but in any event there's obviously a lot of students that are also out for covid i'm just curious what it looks like on the ground are we seeing sort of an even distribution i know there's more at secondary level but how is it affecting the classrooms and is it creating a lot of disruption for the whole classroom community certainly having the adult supervision in terms of faculty and staff is important it has been skewed towards more students out a number of the students traveled or participated in large gatherings over the holiday break so it was definitely skewed towards more students being absent that obviously we can withstand but again if it becomes you know if there's a micro cluster with faculty and
054staff that is what's going to be problematic in terms of trying to stay open and operational we're not immune i know other districts have had to make switches here uh and we've been very fortunate and we've got a great team of administrators as as wheeler pointed out and i just think it's uh it's critical for the work that's being done behind the scenes i think it doesn't get recognized enough in terms of what the administrators are doing to try to make sure we have the coverage but it'll be the staffing issue that will bring us to our knees and force us to go remote if we have to yeah i appreciate that and i am extremely thankful to every administrator that's working behind the scenes to make every day we stay open and win in
055my book when you're looking around and seeing how many how many districts are having issues so tons of appreciation and i also i'm just curious if students are continuing if they're out for a quarantine their their remote or they're picking up packets at school i mean has anything changed from sort of the from the i guess first up to the new year to now in terms of how um remote instruction is happening for those kids that are out the instruction has been the same in terms of picking up packets or having things posted on the learning management system schoology i think what's changed as you know is the quarantine guidance we had an update as late as last week on thursday so as you know we've been trying to get the word out to our
056community in fact our covid coordinator just sent an email that we'd like to get published or the new flow chart from onondaga county so we will try to get that out through our communications department it's changing quickly and some of the things are conflicting as you know some of the new guidance said that as the students come back after day five they're to wear tight-fitting masks and be separated for lunch and snack well as you know we have to serve students meals and we have to allow them to hydrate and so we will do our best job but we're not out there with the tape measure we just don't have the the room and it's frigid temperatures outside so we will do what we can to honor the social distancing but we have to feed
057them we have to allow them to hydrate but the guidance is changing it's clear that everybody wants them back in school even as the flow chart says they may still have to isolate and quarantine while they're at home but it's clear that the health department and the governor are trying to get the kids back in school and not force a mandatory 10-day quarantine unless it's absolutely necessary so i know they're trying to push the test to stay we're awaiting the supplies for that we're awaiting the approval of our protocols and and now in terms of the contact tracing because the original test to stay was for school-based exposures we have no idea what we're dealing with is it's supposed to be household exposures now and if that's the case we're going to have to hire
058additional staff our nurses won't be able to keep up with that if we're suddenly going to be the satellite department of health organization here so a lot is changing under foot i give credit to mr gordon and dr montgomery who are staying on top of this but we're just trying to as we receive the word be transparent and get the word out to the community dr tyson just touched on really what my question was and i'm just still really confused on the test to stay in contact tracing pieces so if test to stay was intended for keeping school-based exposures in school but the school's not doing contact tracing then in theory nobody no student adjacent to someone else who tested positive is being notified so there really wouldn't be a purpose for them to be
059doing tests to stay because you know it's nice that the county guidance generically says notify your close contacts but you know that's if i know my neighbor and i was with my neighbor i'm going to tell my neighbor but i don't know who my child was with and whether they've been vaccinated whether they've been boosted so whether they qualify as a close contact that needs to quarantine or not that those notifications aren't going to be made anymore at this point so i'm not really following really what the even short term point is of test to stay if we're not doing school-based contact racing and i get and i totally understand the burden on the district especially with these latest surges on contact tracing that the hours and hours that it's it's taking in the distraction
060that it is from so many more other things that are obviously critically important and kudos to everybody that's been part of the team doing that because the work is is overwhelming but if we're not doing that in the schools and you have students who perhaps have um immunodeficiency situations and they're not being notified that they were adjacent to another student who tested positive then that in many ways is a disservice to those students as well so i'm interested in how that would be balanced and really truly just what the point is of test to stay if we're not doing school-based contact tracing well as i indicated my backup information to the board it may be obsolete before it even gets off the ground the idea was to reduce the length of the quarantine but i
061think in terms i know you said disservice to the students i think my understanding it's a hiatus from contact tracing because it may be reinstituted i think the assumption is it's out there it's coming in the front door daily and i think we have to assume that if you're in a room chances are you're probably being exposed to it as well so i think that's one of the reasons we stopped the generic your child may have been exposed because it was we were sending it to everybody it was losing its potency in terms of information uh because of the fact we were just sending it to just about everybody and their cousin i think the assumption is with the surge in the omicron it's out there it's coming right in through the front door so
062as far as the test to stay i'll be interested to see how it all sorts out i mean the feeling is it may be obsolete again before it even gets off the ground i i just and forgive me because i just don't recall right now that the notifications that the school was not going to be doing contact tracing in the buildings and notifications any longer i just don't recall was that an email that went out directly to everybody or was that a website article i just don't remember what the form of communication was to families about that we posted something on the website in terms of the upgraded guidance so can can just as a as a suggestion or request can is that something if we're not going to be doing in school contact tracing
063and notifications any longer it would just seem to me like that should be something that should be email communicated out to all the families because many still just do not well that's that's what i couldn't recall i didn't recall that i i gave you credit earlier so well if you're going to give me credit let me talk um so hot off the press tonight i think we're getting ahead of ourselves so i'm going to save us some time thanks to mary patrulis who texted me something who i just sent out to the administrators again new york state has changed the definition of fully vaccinated just this evening so based on what i just read five minutes ago um the booster piece which was the problem a big problem with contact tracing because that's what we
064were trying to do we weren't trying to say we weren't going to contact trace we were trying to figure out how we do it when we don't have all that information readily available to us so suddenly it's impossible to do and the county wasn't helpful no disrespect to the county if they're watching but they were the ones who gave us the right to contact trace as an offshoot of them then when your boss says we're not doing it anymore it's very hard to say well are we supposed to still be doing it or not because we're out here and now the entity that gave us the power to do it has taken it away so now we're calling parents and saying you're not going to hear anything from the county anymore they're not going to
065give you any formal isolation or quarantine orders but trust us we have the authority and we're just telling you we're going to do it but we also have to ask you some questions you know and trust that you're going to give us the correct answer anyway long story short as of tonight it reads as though and i want to read it more carefully it reads as though they've addressed that for schools and said that boosters for school students and staff i believe is not is not a part of the equation it is for after school and extracurriculars it says but not not school activities during the day i'm just telling you what i just read so the issue now about contact tracing gets more interesting because we may be able once we sort this out
066and we need a little time to sort it out we might be able to figure out how we might proceed with some of it um and so it's everything is changing so quickly dan we just need a little bit more time today was the first day we didn't do contact racing we did it through friday so it wasn't that we weren't going to do it it's that we're trying to figure out how to do it in a in a time when they're not when all the information wasn't available to us any longer so we had a new set of issues to try and deal with now that this has changed we almost have to start over again and start looking at it again tomorrow morning figure out what it means for the school district so
067stay tuned so i wouldn't send anything out yet because as a matter of fact that flow chart that you mentioned now looks like it may be not related to schools so we made another flowchart i suppose from the county but this all just came out literally 10 minutes ago so that's where we're at the issue with test to stay i'll just say quickly has always been that it sounds great right when you get up there and you say don't worry if you have an in-school contact then uh before you go down to your homeroom you'll stop in and you'll take your test it's 15 minutes and then you go down but those of you who've given those home tests try to do 30 of them at one time it's impossible right it's not possible so
068we obviously have a a problem with the surge i think they realize that good news bad news is that we haven't been approved yet we have the licenses but we don't have our plan approved from the county yet and we don't have the supplies that the county has told us they would send us yet so we're not anywhere near to start anyway because we don't have all the pieces in place if it stays as an in school contact issue which we almost have none of and now that the booster is not there when the when the booster requirement was there you could imagine it went from one or two kids to 30 or 40 kids now that that piece looks like it may be gone test to stay may be easier to implement as long
069as it's dr ty said as long as it stays as it's supposed to as only an in-school contact issue and not family contacts that again would make it balloon to a point that we could not do it the other piece in all this i'm sorry to keep talking about the other piece in this is that remember they talked about test to stay when it was a 10-day quarantine and as a matter of fact the church they gave us showed testing through the seventh day well that doesn't seem to apply anymore when kids can come back after five so um everything is changing so quickly that we don't know how test to stay is gonna look by the time we get started i have a feeling it might be adapted and tweet uh based on these
070new that came out before the isolation and quarantine order changes that just got implemented so obviously things are moving even faster than this meeting because things are coming out during the meeting if something comes out at 7 30 i'll let you know but thank you jeff appreciate it thanks jeff for that update thank you mary any additional questions for dr thais on his covet update or um old copenhagen so you thought i was just making this stuff up till you heard it from him i i thought that they were going to contact trey's blonde haired children but not brown-haired children or it's going to be at some point i i give up thank you it is confusing all kidding aside and i know you said that in your email and others as well it's just
071it's tough to stay up with it and thank goodness we have individuals like mr gordon and dr montgomery trying to keep track of this because it really is changing underfoot so not only are we staying operational as far as the staff we're trying to adapt to the ever-changing rules that govern and it's all well intended as we said earlier everybody wants the children to be in school and they're trying to orchestrate it as such to make that happen but we want it to be in a safe way but at the same time as mr gordon indicated there's some information we're not privy to and so it makes it awfully difficult it isn't that we don't want to do it it's just coming at us it's like trying to drink out of a fire hose so
072we're doing our best so thank you okay next on the agenda we have our committee and representative updates all right so audit is going to meet again on the 24th community relations we don't have a current meeting or upcoming meeting the diversity equity and inclusion committee is meeting on the ninth we had updated our last meeting um facilities do you have any update there no okay um finance nope already uh policy is not that correct we have not met but um my understanding is our agreement was we were very close to having that dei policy ready and since our last meeting was uh at the last minute some of us couldn't attend we said let's just get in our final edits to this our comments on this policy over email so we can get it
073to the administrative cabinet so then it can come back to the full board so that's what we're working on is getting everybody's comments in um i think since we've had this policy since october we could you know hopefully set a deadline that the whole board could talk about it either next meeting or the one after because it is something that we it's one of our goals that would be great all right um anything from the foundation education that's me no there hasn't been a meeting okay and legislatively so this one i actually have something okay um so i'm going to send you guys an email um with a bunch of things the um so the uh nisba has updated a number of documents or they've come up with a number of documents based on the
074uh legislative priorities for this year they there are three different pdfs that i'll send to you one is what was accomplished last year and what wasn't accomplished in that they went to advocate for something and it wasn't it didn't go through the way that we would like like it to the second document i'll send to you is based on the business meeting that i attended and i explained to you what our new priorities will be and what the now position statements are so i will send you three different pdfs after this meeting that you can just look through of what has happened in the past year then uh the other thing they coming up in february they're going to have they would normally have a lobby day where people would go to albany and meet
075with on february you know on this one day in february we could all go to albany and meet with our representatives and advocate but it's gone online which means that we can pick a day in february to meet with our local representatives and i've done that before with dr science and mr farlon um to prepare for that there's a february second session where they kind of train you on how to do this lobbying and how to talk so that's something that i hope that dr nice mr furlong can we can work together to get to figure out what we want to advocate but i will attend that february second session to um to get advice on what we should be asking for or how we should ask for it um and then uh in addition
076as you know uh governor hochul just did the state of the state and um nisba has come up with a a reply and everything is positive but that's another thing that al said they didn't do it as a pdf it's posted online so it's just a link so i'll send you guys that so you can look at that and anybody watching in the audience or on youtube if you want to email me i can send you all these things too i'm not being a mystery um but you could also go to the nisba nisba.org and they have it on under their advocacy tab so that's the update i have for the legislative liaison any questions for sharing thank you very much for putting all that together we'll look for those emails um and hannah do
077you report tonight um yeah i do um so first in regards i know tonight there's asked about the homework assignment as far as i know for all the classes it has been changed and a lot of students came back to me and they were grateful for that change and now for the classes the homework that has to be submitted online is due at the beginning of the class period or it is being um reviewed in person now so that was the change with the homework assignment and then in regards to cinnamon i'm a member of mun at the high school and i chaired for one of the ga committees so we were very grateful to be able to be in person this year together last year the whole platform was virtual so members of steering
078committee had to be at home and it was somewhat difficult to try to chair a community a committee with another person when we couldn't be together so we were very fortunate that it worked out with administration and with the board that all the members of executive staff and steering committee could be at the high school altogether in our separated rooms so that was awesome and we got a lot of feedback from the other schools who attended cinnamon and they enjoyed it and the one thing we got back from advisors of other schools was they were so appreciative and of how the juniors and seniors who were the chairs for the committees um were so um like open and welcoming to be able to show like like to describe the processes of mun because it is
079a training commit conference so that was a positive that we got back and um i want to thank mrs gross and mr mcguigan because they spent a lot of time over the past couple of months to get it together and to make sure that cinnamon was as best as it could be and then one other positive thing that i know a lot of students at the high school are looking forward to is the dance marathon mc performance that is coming up in the next couple of weeks um people are starting to talk about it again and get excited and i know last year because of circumstances um it got pushed off and there wasn't as much school spirit for it but this year it's obvious that the 14 mcs there you've been working their butt
080off to get ready for dance marathon and you can tell like the overall school spirit is a lot of people are excited especially the underclassmen who don't really know what dance marathon is like because it was canceled in 2020 and then last year it was all virtual so i know a lot of the students are excited for that to come back and i know us seniors are excited to see it again because we haven't really had one since our freshman year so those are the main things that are happening right now at the high school if anyone has any questions feel free to ask thank you very much hannah it's good to hear that feedback and the positive changes made does anyone have any questions for hannah all right next on the agenda item 3.01
081approval approval of the minutes of the december 13th 2021 regular meeting is there a motion to approve the minutes thank you sherry in a second for mark any discussion although the favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or abstaining one abstention item 3.02 and i'm actually going to read this one because this is a very important resolution is there a motion that it be resolved upon the recommendation of the superintendent that the board of education hereby authorizes the superintendent of schools to negotiate and execute a memorandum of agreement with the fayetteville mainland teachers association which will pl which will place the school nurses on the salary schedule included in the current collective bargaining agreement between a fabled manly essential schools and the fable manliest teachers association and clarify additional expectations for the school nurses this
082memorandum shall be executed no later than january 31st 2022 there a motion thank you dan is there a second thank you darrell any discussion this is a very good uh opportunity for our nurses who have really i mean done so much in this pandemic so that's wonderful all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or abstaining next item 3.03 [Music] uh real property law section 487 opt in is there a motion that will be resolved that the favorable manly central school district districts opt out of the tax exemption made available by the real property tax law section 487 for solar wind or farm waste energy systems is hereby rescinded and such exemptions shall be applicable within the boundaries of the fayetteville manly central school district is there a motion thank you jason second
083from dan any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i in an opposed or abstaining item 3.04 commercial pilot agreement is there a motion that be resolved that the board of education or the favor of melee central school district authorizes the superintendent of schools to execute a payment in lieu of a tax agreement pursuant to the term set forth above and the former approved by legal counsel is there a motion thank you darryl is there a second thank you mark any discussion yeah just real quick um first of all thank you for the change bill and whoever else was involved in that the next item that triggered this last time just on the pilot agreements there are still references to resolutions adopted on december 13 of 21 that need to be updated to tonight's
084date because we didn't do those resolutions in december um so just those that date change just has to be made in each of the three pilot agreements it's on the cover it's in paragraph 2c as well as the cover okay thank you we'll make sure we update those any further discussion all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or abstaining next on the agenda item 3.05 acceptance of donation is there a motion that will be resolved at the board of education of the fable manly essential school district hereby accepts a donation for the term set forth as presented thank you dan the second from jason any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i am opposed or stating okay on 3.06 real property loss section 487 opt out is there a motion
085then to be resolved that the board of education of the fayetteville manly essential school district approves the real property law section 487 opt out as indicated below thank you darrell second for mark any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i am opposed to abstaining item 3.07 is there a motion that will be resolved with the board of education of the fayetteville manly central school district appoints the arc angelo and company llp to complete an internal audit the cost of which shall not exceed seven thousand dollars is there a motion thank you darrell second for mark any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or abstaining item 3.08 resolution special patrol officer agreement is there a motion that would be resolved the board of education in the fayetteville manly central
086school district hereby acknowledges the employment separation as presented by the superintendent and hereby approve the special patrol officer agreement as presented your motion thank you darrell second thank you jason any discussion yeah just briefly i'm just i'm confused by the recommended action which refers to this as an employment separation it's uh both to separate from the current special patrol officer that's in there and replacing with a new one okay so it's it's a replacement of the one that's exiting with this one that's attached to the materials correct okay thank you i'll build in favor please indicate i i am opposed or abstaining all right i'm on 401 now board development we talked earlier about or spoke um our upcoming retreat with dr daughton if you're not able to make it thank you for the email
087we have received already please let um dr tyson i know i probably should read this but where's the location um i believe we've already got the high school in our regular um room that we use okay okay i will get an agenda out ahead of time i believe all right working agenda items potential considerations for future meetings uh let's see future meeting calendar so on there you see the 24th we've got our state aid update budget presentation coming up on february 7th dates to remember it's great to see some concerts on there and there's a dance marathon kickoff on the 20th marissa i'm sorry just one quick question just turn backwards on agenda items which one are you on it just a 4.02 and whether that fits there or not i'm just for future meetings
088because we don't discuss consent agenda items i was just confused when i look back at this when of when or why personnel actions slid back into the consent agenda i thought we had agreed an agreement several years ago that personnel items were always going to be their own standalone item a few months ago and i know you weren't at the meeting um the board discussed that and agreed to put that um item in consent i remember i think i think there might have been two people out there you and alan both might have been out but when you came back there was confusion and so we did explain that the board discussed it and agreed to do that we're going to keep it like that for now i mean at the end of the year
089school year as we go into our summer retreat if it's something we want to reconsider again i think that would be a great time to do so all right so i believe i'm on consent agenda now is there a motion to approve the consent agenda thank you mark in a second from rebecca all those in favor please indicate i i you want to post or abstaining okay so we do have some items for executive session is there a motion to adjourn to executive session for discussion of the employment history of a particular individual a student discipline matter and the superintendent's mid-year review thank you sherry is there a second thank you jason any discussion although the favor please indicate i i am opposed or abstaining all right so this is going to conclude our public
090portion of the meeting we're going to go into agenda i'm sorry into executive session and then adjourn immediately thereafter with no further public action thank you all for attending the meeting you