Fayetteville-Manlius BOE Meeting for Monday, October 18, 2021.

001[Music] yes you this week marks school board recognition week a movement to honor school board members statewide without a doubt our district has one of the best boards of education in new york their dedication to the education of our students and to the greater community is unparalleled thank you all for each and every one of you for your tireless efforts at this time i'd like to present some certificates of recognition to all of you on behalf of a grateful community hello yeah um so as you can tell this is my first time ever at a board meeting [Music] okay so hello my name is lexi richmond i'm a senior at fm high school today i'm here to talk about the mental health situation i've read and researched many articles and read many emails from both

002syracuse.com and the email and updates from dr tice now i'm not here to criticize let's see what he's doing and choosing to do but i'm here to voice my opinion on what is going on i feel our counselors are not supportive when we are dealing with a major anxiety attack or something along that line based on personal experience i do not feel that the counselors are equipped to deal with psychological problems like anxiety and major depression at school if we go to the counselors for that they will contact our parents of course but in the moment i feel that they can't help us dr tais also said that we have 25 highly qualified psychologists and counselors and social workers on staff he mentions our counselors and putting that pressure on them to deal with major

003problems within the study student body is not that fair another topic i would like to bring up is if we had a mental health clinic that the school will not get the information shared between the student and the psychologist dr thais says because the clinic would operate separately from the school district patient information would be confidential and not shared with district psychologists counselors administrators administrators and teachers unless authorized by parental consent why does the school need to know what's going on with the students when they see that person in the clinic it's just like if you're going to a regular therapist they don't disclose that information that you share with your parents unless the patient asks so if we had a mental clinic with trained professionals the students and i would have a safe place

004to go where we know we are having confidential conversations with professionals trained for this matter i feel our counselors are great with guiding us in our future experience such as college but i do not feel that they are adapted with dealing with adolescent issues including depression and anxiety if we can get this mental health clinic established i feel that students would be better supported with issues such as anxiety depression peer pressure etc thank you for listening and i hope we can come up with a resolution that is better for the students and school thank you [Applause] hi there hello to superintendent tys and to the members of the board my name is marisa della garza i'm here today to voice my support of your efforts to implement diversity equity and inclusion initiatives in light of

005the recent conversations about the district's decisions regarding mental health services i would like to specifically comment about the intersection of dei and mental health i am both the k-12 fm alum as well as the parent of two fm students at fail in wellwood my parents are 43-year residents of manliness and raised five children here all graduating from fm with an excellent education and with opportunities to participate in sports music and the arts what i was not prepared for after growing up in our still predominantly white community was how to navigate the diverse cultures and communities i would later find myself in but that was more than 25 years ago a lifetime i had hoped that when i convinced my wife kate to move back to this area in order to raise our children the things

006would have changed in some ways they clearly clearly have not after reading the many stories on the instagram account hashtag fm truce last summer i see that there continues to be ongoing harm and injustices occurring to bipoc female lgbtqia plus students and others in others in marginalized groups the traumas perpetrated by their fellow students and sometimes school staff members can and does have a serious impact on the mental health of students in these groups as well as every other member of the fm school community as a clinical social worker working with children and adolescents for almost 20 years and being a school-based clinician for part of that time i've seen firsthand how living with a marginalized identity can cause chronic stress anxiety and depression and negatively affect student achievement how can a student focus on

007their learning and be successful if they don't feel safe in the classroom if they don't feel like they belong if they must deal with daily microaggressions if they don't see any teachers or staff that look like them if parts of their culture's history are erased or misrepresented if there's no consistent framework or support for discussing issues of race and identity in the classroom if they don't feel like they have one safe adult to talk to at school addressing dei issues and implementing policies that serve both to prevent harm and increase understanding will directly have a positive impact on the emotional well-being of all students i appreciate superintendents tyson's email about fm contracting with a local mental health therapist to provide counseling off-site for students i would like to ask him in the board to consider

008the benefits of having a wellness center or clinic located on site in the plans for the future high school renovation removing the barriers to accessing mental health services can be life life saving for many students particularly those that are the most vulnerable my hope for my two children and for every fm student is that they can thrive in a school environment where their multiple cultural identities are affirmed and where their social emotional well-being is given the same amount of attention and care as their academic success thanks for listening [Applause] elizabeth hello hey um thank you for allowing me to speak hi dan my name is betsy hartnett and i'm here to speak in support of the diversity equity and inclusion initiatives i'm both a parent and an alumna of fm schools i just want to

009also add in that i support lexi and marissa both as for the mental health i think that is a huge piece too and i'm hoping that we can get a place for our students to go when they're having a mental health attack the dei initiatives benefit all of our students and our community fm needs to stay strong against the opposition which although small is loud and belligerent and often ignorant in fact the opposition doesn't even have an argument they are simply opposition there is a trend across new york state and the nation to challenge instructional materials in the library and in the classrooms the people bringing these challenges have been fed information from the internet on what materials to challenge and how to challenge them and even what to write or say often these challengers

010have little to no knowledge of the content to which they are challenging or even if the materials are actually in the schools it's insane so i am asking for fm to be a role model for what districts can and should do by fighting for what is right and what is best for our students and taking a strong stance against the opposition and supporting the diversity equity and inclusion initiatives thanks [Applause] hi thanks for your time um there has been much talk and time taken up with disagreement about the value of a dei audit fair schools policy curriculums and actions this this note is to act is to recognize one aspect that has received a little attention but is an essential part of the education of any school and school board that it offers to its

011students and teachers and the essentials part is both an attitude and a skill and it is called critical thinking it is critical thinking not with a capital c and the word race after it is a verb more than a noun it is a process and the process is antithetical to the way it has been portrayed by so many fm parents it has been argued to the board that dei is an offshoot of totalitarianism socialism marxism and will promote the development of one way of thinking and speaking unfortunately it is the anti-daei voice that promotes clinging to the telling of one story critical thinking requires that multiple narratives the marginalized voices the voices that have not been heard the lived experience of the many not just the official history be included in what students are exposed

012to and taught children must have this multi-layered story in order for a more accurate and full picture of our history to be understood it is not an attempt to construct or force one version of history upon all it is not a form of group think it is the opposite and i want to say here that there are teachers who have been for years trying to include critical thinking as a part of their curriculum but there are some and there are some times when critical thinking is not engaged and could be as mentioned one requirement for critical thinking to happen is that multiple voices both minority and majority be heard but another requirement is that open-ended questions be a basis for discussion and writing not only questions with right and wrong answers this allows for disagreement

013agreement overcoming the fear of difference learning how to respect difference finding empathy working toward justice finding dissonance in one's own thinking and resolving a better way forward for all of us schools must take on this primary mission throughout all curriculum areas it can appropriately begin even in early kindergarten and preschool years asking questions and opening up the classroom to more and more of children's voices whether it is solving math problems solving fights over legos thinking about the pros and cons of scientific inventions or understanding about the effects of racism in our history schools play an important role in helping our children learn the processes needed to participate in multicultural society based on the assumption that all people are created with an equal right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness we support i support

014the dei initiatives in our local schools and we need an administration that stands up strongly to support its teachers to teach the sometimes hard and ugly facets of american history it cannot be left to the individual teachers to defend the necessary hard discussions our children are capable of having thank you [Applause] thank you very much for having me and giving the time my name is michelle demaio grace and i currently have an 11th grader and a 7th grader in the fm school district we've been in the community now for 17 years i am here today to urge the board to keep dei a priority in fusing it into hiring professional development and curriculum and culture across fm i've spent the last 14 years working for the u.s department of agriculture when i started with usda

015i learned that nationally we spend millions of dollars every year promoting civil rights as the administrative officer of my agency i naively didn't understand how we could afford to expend such time and resources on this i quickly learned that usda has a history of systemic racial bias and discrimination and treatment of minority farmers and landowners this goes all the way back to the new deal this was my first real in-depth understanding of how systemic racism operates i was 34 years old 34. i realized that i needed to do better both personally and professionally at usda i've also witnessed the transformative power of dei when leadership policy and organizational culture align behind it it's a process not a finish line i ask the board to keep at it this is important work lead fm in this

016effort keep examining and improving dei here you all have tremendous power and opportunity to shape the future in closing please don't forget to engage your most important customers the students whether it be the blm chalk project staff asian hate rally or educating their parents on pronoun use i am continually impressed by them let them help lead the way thank you very much for your time and for what you all do for our community thank you [Applause] hello oh no it's too big there we go uh hello everyone uh thank you for your opportunity to speak today my name is nathan edwards and i'm here to vote voice my support for the district's dei initiative i'm a parent of two kids who will be in the fm school district soon and uncle the two nieces who

017attend feyel and wellwood my wife as an fm alum are as are her four siblings and we recently moved back here to raise our family here mainly because our in large part because of the school system i grew up in a community very similar to this a very homogeneous community of race ethnicity and socioeconomic status as a white straight cisgendered guy i mostly fit in i was a little different than my peers having only a single parent but that was you know paled and consider paled in comparison to many of my peers who were more disadvantaged than i this is one of the many areas of difference that fm could do more to actively support and acknowledge their students by training i'm a stem cell biologist and i believe in the importance of knowledge curiosity

018to help better understand the world understand the world around us and deductive uh reasoning and critical thinking to help us analyze and improve it we have a call we have a duty to our children to help them foster this mindset not just in stem classes but in our literature history and arts classes as well not only when it is convenient but when it's challenging and frankly sometimes when it's uncomfortable we do our kids a disservice from shielding them from our country's past in our history the reality of our country is complicated and often painful and bringing this up and allowing our kids to discuss this is important and imperative one small example of this is still down the water down history taught surrounding christopher columbus and columbus day we should teach our kids the truth

019so that we can learn from the past and build a more honest and inclusive future the dei mission statement released by the fm district last month has been is generic and watered down we need much more specificity naming the types of differences to be considered in identifying specific action steps to create a more inclusive and equitable learning environment for our kids especially those who are the most vulnerable to racism bias and discrimination i am hopeful that the board will not be swayed by the vulcan minority who are against this change and will and hope that you will soon release a more comprehensive and action action-oriented dei plan thank you for your time [Applause] all right good evening my name is sterling waters i am the father of a fourth grader at fayel um i'm here

020because i noticed on the school calendar that columbus day was recognized but we currently do not have indigenous people's day recognized on the school calendar in light of the fact that the town of manlias recently adopted a resolution to recognize indigenous people's day and also president biden himself recognizing indigenous people today i simply came here to ask is there something that we could do as a community as well as our relationship with the haudenosaunee to also recognize indigenous people's day in addition to columbus day thank you gotcha good evening it's great to be here in person it's the first time in a long time right great well the principals and i are pleased to be here this evening to share the building plans and goals based on the district's strategic plan the last time we

021were together to present the strategic plan was the fall of 2019 and we were making great progress in strides towards the accomplishment of the goals identified at that time and then march 2020 hit and like everything else in the world we we paused and interrupted to focus on immediate student needs and instructional design within the pandemic or in the pandemic so this past spring and summer we had the opportunity to begin to reset and in anticipation of students returning to school full-time the administrative cabinet got together over the summer and in the spring and we revised and revised the district goals in the strategic plan from there the building principles met with their building action teams and revised building level goals you will notice the timelines have been adjusted to accommodate for changes over this

022period of of time and just as a reminder the building level plans and goals are aligned with the components of the district's strategic plan including our vision our vision as a school community is to inspire students and to promote personal success also the building plans are aligned with the mission to academic excellence focus on authentic learning experiences civic responsibility innovative programs in an environment that fosters meaningful relationships supports the overall wellness of each student and promotes continuous improvement in our four priority areas so i'll just touch briefly on the priority areas and the district goals just as a reminder and also to give you context for the building plans that you're we're going to devote the majority of this presentation on so in in the area of teaching and learning revising curriculum and instruction to

023address the new york state standards frameworks and regulations in just about every content area we are revising and incorporating new new york standards some of those standards are newer than others but much of that work was paused during the pandemic in terms of framework the newest framework that we are focusing on this school year is the new york state culturally responsive sustaining education framework and you will see that work represented in the building level goals as well in terms of district technology infrastructure and advancing instructional technology we are certainly capitalizing on all the growth and skills we made last year during the pandemic or in this year during the pandemic also you will later on this year have an opportunity to take a look at our tech plan which will be revised we're also focusing

024on this area in this area on k-2 k-12 coding in content areas and infusion infusing coding in those content areas and media literacy is a focus as well with the technology committee learning that is hallmark of fayetteville manliness i believe and we have this fall been able to return to teachers attending conferences we have recently publicized additional fmn service courses we had a great guest speaker dr anchel to kick off the school year and we have a district-wide speaker in november mark mambretti who will focus on print one of the principles in the culturally uh responsive framework the welcoming and affirming environment and you'll be hearing much more about that and there also will be a professional learning report at the i believe january board meeting we will be doing that terms of a positive

025school environment again just to highlight we uh have are expanding the cyro and the spo program you'll hear in the building reports about learning spaces now and as we're planning into the future that supports student inquiry innovation and collaboration as um president mims just mentioned the next month we will have an in-depth uh presentation about mental health services but you will also in the building plans hear more about instructional initiatives in the in that area as well and sir in the area of service learning and community partnerships we are re-engaging our partnership with the tri-state consortium and we will be uh re-engaging with them and also planning for a district visit and consultancy sometime next year maybe in the fall or possibly in the spring depending on on how that work goes and again you

026will hear about partnerships and service learning in the building plans and again in the area of priority area of fiscal capacity and responsibility maintaining our strong financial position completing capital improvement projects and monitoring the long-range facilities plan to make sure that our facilities are responsive to contemporary teaching and learning and support a productive work environment for all employees so that is the context of our larger district strategic plan and now i'm going to turn it over to our principals for an overview of their building plans and building goals beginning with our elementary principles good evening thank you thank you for this opportunity it's always great to be able to share our building plans and we're standing here together tonight debbie john and i we as you know as elementary principals we work very closely together

027to ensure consistency and coordination across our buildings so um we're going to be presenting together for the priority area of teaching and learning our building level goal is focusing on the professional learning of our staff and addressing diversity equity and inclusion our staff has had the opportunity to participate in book studies around dei in addition there are multiple in-service classes being offered and our upcoming staff development day like mary mentioned will focus on that crsc framework specifically that first principle creating a welcoming and affirming atmosphere the elementary library media specialists are also participating in boces leadership opportunities and are involved in an audit with suggestions for improvement to date all three buildings are collaborating with our hsas and we are receiving donations and purchasing bilingual books for students finally we are partnering with interfaith works

028again to plan a dialogue club to be offered to our fourth grade students the goal of this dialogue club will be to produce an environment where students can safely examine their own identities build self-confidence and acceptance build cross-cultural understanding create an atmosphere of belonging and become allies for social inclusion efforts within each of our buildings this program is still in the planning stages at the moment and our goal is to begin this dialogue club before the second and semester turn it over to debbie good evening thank you for your time and for this opportunity at all three elementary schools ensuring a positive school environment has always been a foundational goal for our school communities during a typical school year mental health supports and social emotional learning are a priority however as we all know the

029pandemic over the last 18 months has caused this building goal to become even more essential in order to increase the services that support the mental health and well-being of our students we are utilizing multiple strategies programs and interventions at the elementary level we continue to expand our use of second step second step is a research based teacher informed and classroom tested program which promotes social emotional development safety and the well-being of students in kindergarten through fourth grade these lessons are being utilized by our school counselors school psychologists and classroom teachers with an at-home component as well in each of the buildings we have also expanded our use of flexible seating for students we purchase new student desks seating and classroom tables for some of our classrooms which will allow for flexible use and movement as

030needed our goal is to continue to attain this kind of flexible furniture for other classrooms in the future additionally we have been mindful to offer specialized and targeted social emotional support to our students who were either new returning from being home schooled or were remote learners last year our goal was to ensure as smooth and welcoming a transition as possible to school when we reopened this fall although our efforts are consistent and aligned across the three elementary schools we do have some unique differences that reflect our own individual school community needs at enders road elementary we have expanded our peaceful place and brought back the motor lab these new spaces offer an opportunity for individual students or whole classes to visit to have movement breaks meet sensory needs and regulate emotions so that students bodies

031are just right to learn at fayetteville elementary they have expanded the district's therapy dog program and welcomed piper who is visiting their school two times per week to offer additional support to the whole school community the students and staff enthusiastically welcome her to feyel at mott road elementary they are very excited to have begun to engage in the positivity project they are holding monthly community building assemblies and reframing their character education program to facilitate an other people matter mindset through all of these programs and strategies the elementary schools continue to focus on how best to support our students mental health and social emotional skills so that all learners can feel safe comfortable and ready to learn janna will now share about our efforts in the area of community partnerships and service learning good evening everyone

032and thank you thank you to debbie and eileen for taking us through the elementary goals for creating a positive school environment and teaching and learning we are looking forward to getting back on track with things that have been delayed since cobit or from hybrid learning and as reflected in each building's plans both our goals and strategies have encompassed multiple years given those circumstances at all three elementary schools we have created or re-established serving service learning partnerships programs that increase mentorship opportunities for our students these partnerships focus on opportunities that are aligned with the curriculum and enhance student learning all three buildings will be participating in the mcmahon ryan high five program through our health classes the mcmahon ryan child advocacy center has developed a comprehensive program for both at home and in school that will

033give children the skills to help them be safe happy and healthy skills include healthy feelings instincts personal body safety and internet safety at all three buildings we will also facilitate experiences where we pair our students with their older fm student peers either from the middle school or high school while we are all unified in our goals and have similar programming the ways we aim to achieve these goals and opportunities differ slightly from one another at fayetteville elementary students we will be participating in the b council where the council will help to plan and facilitate different community service efforts enders road will be participating in this year's duck race through interfaith works which aims to end racism additionally project bridge is another effort being made with students at enders road this is again a mentorship partnership

034with middle school and high school students as debbie mentioned mott road will be re-establishing some of our character ed programming with some new new facets but we will also be going back to our career lunch chats during the latter portion of the year given the fact we are a little bit more tech savvy we will remote different careers into our cafeteria and allow students to choose what they're most interested in we also have established a kindness club and are very very excited about engaging in the positivity project where we do community outreach each month this week or this month we are partnering with rise above the streets a local non-profit organization we're looking forward to continuing and or starting new goal work related to our priority areas and sincerely appreciate the support of the board

035as we have reinstated many of our programs and continue to make students experience at fm second to none thank you for your time and some cute pictures for you to look at did i leave the dogs up long enough yeah okay good evening everyone thank you once again for welcoming us to a board meeting i also want to thank you for all of the support that you've shown our schools over the past few years on behalf of maureen mcchrystal who regrets being unable to join us this evening i am pleased to provide an overview of the eagle hill middle school 2021 2022 building goals and strategies as well as wellwood's goals as reflected in each building's plans both our goals and strategies encompass multiple years the hybrid and remote learning models of the 2020-2021 school

036year along with the unique responsibilities placed on public schools in collaboration with the local health department during an international pandemic shifted the pace timeline and focus of needs in our school building plans at both eagle hill and wellwood our expert teachers have designed implemented and continually refined innovative learning opportunities that support inquiry collaboration and choice while balancing the unchartered path of remote and hybrid instruction exemplifying the best of our practice the entire eagle hill staff found genuine and student-centered approaches to continue to build the school community in a time of fear and uncertainty the relationships within their classrooms and between their school and community continue to thrive as educators colleagues and members of the fayetteville manlias community there is refined attention to the role of schools as imperative in providing opportunities for the best interest

037of adolescents academic emotional and social well-being while engaging students in real world problem solving the teachers at eagle hill focused on students connectedness and wellness select eagle hill middle school teachers approached wednesdays as a model for weekly wellness activities during the last school year and that will serve as a model for further consideration and refinement this school year through in-person in remote platforms students showed evidence of learning attempts at new strategies risk taking and achievements and all of that continues to lead learning at eagle hill flexing in ways they could never have foreseen the schedule continues to be an opportunity for collaboration in cross-curricular project-based learning with foldable walls between some of the classrooms and shared loft spaces the appreciation of time and physical space together is reflected in eagle hills plans for the future

038further given the timeline of potential facility projects for eagle hill they will focus on considering options to repurpose the loft spaces in shared spaces between classrooms teaching and learning at eagle hill will continue to evolve because of the educational expertise and skill of the faculty last year did not promote the investigation and creation of unique academic intervention enrichment or multi-disciplinary courses however principal mcchrystal eagle hill's literacy specialist and the math intervention specialists look forward to re-engaging in collaboration with colleagues for eagle hill to continue as a model school developing and enhancing emotional and social opportunities to support all students in an inclusive and flexible setting that enrich health and wellness will be an intentional focus this school year for eagle hill there are four experts in student support services the two school counselors school psychologists

039and family school liaison are designing and piloting a program for students available during enrichment period revisiting the enrichment period opportunities and mentorship between students and staff provide opportunities for growth beyond the character traits of the positivity project eagle hill piloted involvement in community-wide dialogue joining wellwood and high school with their participation the community-wide dialogue school exchange program was a series of conversations between eagle hill and syracuse city school h.w smith middle school students from each school come together to participate in structured group discussions about issues relating to race stereotyping the power of being an ally and taking action these discussions will help students gain perspective about the community in which they live and make connections with students across the area in the words of their students i would never have known about others day-to-day experiences

040at their school without community-wide dialogue john antoine and michaela current first-year students at fm high school and members of the class of 2025 starred in a video created to share with eagle hill students about the experience and here is the introduction the community-wide dialogue school exchange program is a series of conversations between our school and a syracuse city school stereotyping the power of being an ally and taking action these discussions will help you gain perspective about the community which you live and make connections with students across the area so our participants if you like iowa why aren't you going to start out by telling us what you like the best of that um oh [Music] is because um [Music] that is not what i wanted to do okay under the priority area of positive school

041environment wellwood continues to work with expanding social emotional learning and support for our students our counselors and psychologists are continuing to utilize the second step program with our small counseling groups this year with the leadership of our family school liaison we are working closely with our instructional staff to utilize the student risk screening scale to identify our students who may require some additional social emotional support this will also help us to prioritize the students and families for our family school liaison to support along with our counselors she will structure social emotional support to address their needs while at school for the past few years you'll likely recall that our counseling team at wellwood was researching was researching mentoring programs in other schools while it is very excited this year to roll out our own version

042of a mentoring program which we've named the support squad we expect to make adjustments and refinements to the program as we move through the year and experience what works best for our students and staff our character education committee continues to look for additional ways to embed the positivity project in our daily interactions with others the committee has charged themselves with increasing recognition for those making extra efforts to develop positive relationships with others with emphasis on peer-to-peer recognition this work will continue to be very important as we lean on on one another and on our strengths to successfully meet the challenges that will that we will face this year our work with our project passadon program continues this year as well as we support rise above poverty like in the past we will create service learning

043opportunities for our entire school community and as you are very well aware this is a very big year for wellwood with the completion of the construction within the building the planning and communication associated with a project of this size will continue to be at the forefront of our work this year the moves that will occur mid-year will perhaps be the most complicated of the project as we will have more than 20 classrooms moving within the same time frame not only will communication occur with staff but it is very important that our students understand how and when their schedules will change as well the changes that have been made to our building have been exceptional while the burden has been plentiful for our staff related to all of the extra pieces associated with a project this

044size all staff have been very pleased with the changes made and all are excited for this last phase to be complete our renovated classrooms are beautiful the temperature control is such a welcome change and now our building feels more accessible with the addition of the ramp in the new main foyer with the turnover of the second floor later this year we will have three project classrooms available for teachers to sign out these flexible learning spaces have been outfitted with flexible furniture and technology to allow teachers to support our students in creative learning environments thank you and i appreciate all of your time it's always difficult going last after you have some incredible colleagues uh leading leading the way um first you have to start off by recognizing the incredible work that's occurred in all buildings

045beginning in march 2019. when you think about the the great lift that was placed upon teachers at a moment's notice and ways in which they had to focus on rethinking what instruction looked like on a day-to-day basis on a weekly basis monthly and yearly basis it's really extraordinary and the fact that we are back together seeing each other every single day has been absolutely incredible and we are so grateful that we're able to come back together to start uh much of the work that we started prior to the pandemic because so much energy was placed on trying to connect students with learning and with each other and with the the school community at a time that none of us could have imagined and so i have to give incredible thanks to not only every educator

046teacher staff member custodial maintenance administrator and to the board of education to our entire community that has truly been a team effort and we're so grateful that we seem to be headed down a path to get us all back to some some true normalcy you'll notice that much of the high school plan mirrors a plan that was delivered to you a number of years ago because there's some pretty hefty goals ultimately with it within that in teaching and learning our focus was trying to expand definition for success of students families through communication changes in programming and curricular offerings one item that a committee of educators at the high school wanted to look at very closely was exploring offering only the five required regions exams that you needed for a regents diploma and behind that is

047to eliminate offering additional and it's interesting about the same time when we started looking at this the board of regents announced the blue ribbon committee on graduation requirements and there's still a survey out that that work has come back and there are five kind of foundational questions that they're asking the community which was what do we want students to know and be able to do before they graduate how do we want students to demonstrate such knowledge and skills how do you measure learning and achievement as it pertains to that last question to ensure they're indicators of high school completion how can we measure how can measures of achieves achievement accurate reflect the skills and knowledge of our special populations such as students with disabilities and english language learners and what course requirements or examinations will

048ensue the students are prepared for college and careers or civic engagement the amazing thing is is that we were asking very similar questions at the same time the state was introducing this information and so um this is something that we're going to continue our work in this actually came to us because of some work through tri-states and my work with bronxville and a number of other schools downstate that do only offer the five exams and it opens up some great flexibility for high schools and targeting students where their most interest so we will continue that work we wish to continue exploring the link crew program and offering the year-long program and review other character education programs to of course improve the experience for all students um again link crew is is very focused at the

049very beginning of the year and it ends and while it's been incredibly positive there's so much more that we can do and but there's more that we need to do throughout the course of freshman year but we also need to do a great deal more for our sophomores and our juniors our sophomores even this year um then than most years because their freshman year was so interrupted uh and so we're continuing to look for new opportunities to connect students throughout the course of the year and a big piece that really kind of came to light throughout the past 18 months was ensuring that we have really clear consistent communication messaging to all stakeholders at the high school so that everyone whether they can go to a parent night or whether they can attend a special

050event has access to all the information they need about academic social career opportunities as they transition throughout a high school career it's so important for us to include additional modalities and we need to find more ways to connect with our school community for positive school environment the focus on identify and evaluate potential changes to the high school schedule to support student achievement and their mental health and well-being this is very focused of course on the start time study that was completed last year but also it's also a great deal of conversation that surrounds the upcoming capital project referendum that will be coming in front of the voters within the next month at the high school we continue to use the exact same schedule that has been a part of fayetteville manila's high school since it

051started it is an eight period day it is 40 minutes hannah will tell you it's manic we're running running running and running um and we believe that there are better ways for us to do this um and while uh some additional added uh improvements in the facility will of course help even without that there's a great deal that we feel like we can do to better serve our students um but it will require some really significant lifting not only at the administrative level but also for for teachers as well because we have to reimagine how we do everything and so that work will continue throughout the course of the next couple of years as well continuing with positive school environment and focus on the increasing of offerings to our students the expansion of our therapy

052dog program we're very excited to have brought that to the district a number of years ago with kiki our first therapy dog we now have three at the high school kiki retired at the end of last year but we do have three at the high school we have charlie we have joey and new to us this year with our new family school liaison at the high school is maisie we've noticed that at the high school we probably need more than just three these dogs are exhausted after a single day sometimes they can do two but it is a lot of work and when you're talking about the build a building a size a favorable manly high school with approximately 1400 students there's a lot of need there and so we've seen such positive success we're

053looking for more ways to of course expand that program we're looking to expand wellness day activities outside of just wellness day we were very proud of that when that started a number of years ago but our focus has been on how do we consistently incorporate wellness activities into every day as a part of being a fable mainly a high school student we're looking this year specifically and heidi will talk to you probably a little bit more about this in her presentation in a couple of weeks but investigating the use of a research-based screening tool to assess student emotional health and risk for our students there is a great deal of research out there and we want to find the best program for our students in our community there is a significantly large committee focused on

054homework prior to the start of pandemic and we're starting that work again and focus on collecting additional data both from our students but also the community meeting parents and teachers and want to focus back on developing true philosophy statements at the high school level that helps guide our work when we're talking about homework at the high school level institute time management activity is part of the course election process we know our students are very engaged and want to take the most and the best that is offered to them well we also want to try to provide them as much information as possible to help them in that process and so we're looking at trying to start incorporating that in part of our scheduling process we're going to continue to collect data on student stressors that's

055through surveys that we have done throughout throughout the years we're going to continue to do that work and use that data to make changes to our daily programming review current high school mental health and well-being activities offerings and services and look for possible improvements effectiveness and or change again that continuous improvement looking to continually find new opportunities to support all of our students and create a communication whether it be a pamphlet or additional communication pieces for parents that highlights what we are doing at the high school in support of our students mental health and well-being people can't access it if they don't know what's there and so we need to do a better job of providing clear information to all of our students and their families as to what is accessible to them and provide

056the resources necessary questions from any of us uh foreign i would just echo what you've said marissa it is always so helpful to us as a board to hear what i mean this is a huge list of things that are happening some we knew some we didn't know so thank you all very much and i'd like to thank everybody for their hard work you mentioned the educators custodial staff transportation food service everybody really did a lot of teamwork to get through the last 18 months and we really appreciate this update and just so happy everybody's back together thank you president mims i have a couple of superintendent reports so the general information one to begin mental health update as some of you may know on wednesday october 13th the office of civil rights issued a

057memorandum to school districts in conjunction with world mental health day to draw our attention to the importance of supporting students who may be at risk for self-harm or suicide as you heard tonight our director of counseling will be reporting out to the board of education about the different services that are available within the fayetteville mandalaya central school district they're also publishing a desk reference as dr kilmer indicated for families that will give an overview of all the different tiers that are available and also and we're excited about it we're in the process of consulting with legal counsel to develop a request for proposals for drop-in services that we've heard from our community of being important it's in regard to teletherapy and we're very excited about the potential of this our legal counsel has helped other

058school districts and this will truly be something that will be able to be a drop-in service that is provided i will keep the board updated regarding that on strategic planning update certainly like to thank dr coughlin and all our building administrators for sharing their most recent building action plans i'm delighted of all that they have accomplished and the aspirations and the goals for the year ahead as you know many of our accomplishments have been captured in our annual report so you should have a copy provided for you they just literally and figuratively came in today so they are available for you to take a look at and will be mailed out to all stakeholders in our community and furthermore as we look ahead to the future i'm pleased to share our most recent strategic planning

059poster i included it in board docs i know our district clerk has been switching them over in the frames and we'll be ready to unveil them after the presentations this evening in all six of our buildings as far as digital equity survey in response to a recent request by the government that our district will be sending out a digital equity survey where our families will be able to provide feedback regarding their children's access to technology infrastructure and connectivity during the pandemic and so we will be able to report back we met with our i.t department today at the district office meeting and those results will be due later on this fall and last but not least capital project update i'd like to thank the board of education for approving the capital improvement project for fm

060high school at the october 4th meeting this project which will go before the voters will address many of the building infrastructure needs including improvements to the heating ventilation and air conditioning systems it will also address a number of programmatic needs that you've heard dr kilmer talk about including a new stem edition and an expanded cafeteria concourse that will allow for improved pedestrian traffic flow between house 1 and house 2. other improvements include the auditorium acoustical upgrades new classroom casework enhancements and the centralization of the main office nurses office suite right in the knuckle of the building so even as we look to the future i cannot help but be impressed with all that we've accomplished with the current capitol building project involving wellwood enders road and the library media center and restrooms at fm high

061school with an official ribbon cutting for wellwood and community open house scheduled for the afternoon of tuesday november 2nd the general election day when many of our community will be out and about i take great pleasure in sharing with you a sneak preview of a video that will be shown to those who attend the open house we will also take the liberty to share the video with others using our social media platforms in the school district website and without further ado and hopefully technology works back in the winter of 2017 fayetteville manlia's residents voted on and successfully passed a 45.2 million dollar facilities project that added space at wellwood middle school and enders road elementary updated the library media center at the high school and replaced aging infrastructure around the district the project is now

062complete and students are already enjoying these great spaces our old library was uh was renovated in the 1990s so it was really designed for a different kind of student and a different kind of use so we we really needed to expand the library to meet 21st century needs so you'll see that we have outlets everywhere so that students can plug in we have a dedicated classroom which we never had before it is checked out by a lot of teachers and we do collaborative work with teachers and classes in that space tables where a student can work by themselves or they can work with others with the new wing we have three beautiful classrooms for third grade we have a makerspace which is a wonderful place for our students and staff to go to really work

063on different group projects some really neat project-based learning it the spaces here in the wing are wonderful and are beautiful and bright and just current flexible furniture but it's also allowed us across the building to be able to expand some of those other spaces that were really cramped so our motor lab has different stations that are occupational therapist and our physical therapist set up and students are able to practice those skills to get their bodies just right for learning we were able to take our beginning of a peaceful place which started in a small closet and actually have it join a regular sized room or an office room and filled it with lots of activities and objects that students can help to reset rejuvenate and renew the first phase of the wellwood facility project brought

064about very positive changes for the school the cafeteria and instructional spaces are no longer in the basement and the hvac system is efficient and allows for a comfortable learning environment also new to wellwood are collaborative project spaces wellwood has had quite a transformation over the past 18 months we began using the spaces that were included in the first phase of the facility project last february the project rooms were constructed to offer collaborative learning spaces so that as teachers require larger spaces for students to complete labs or projects we now have a dedicated space outside of the regular classroom what's most exciting is that these rooms are in addition to spaces that we've always had that have also been renovated our large group instruction room our library and even our new main foyer allow for students

065to have collaborative learning spaces to work we'll be able to monitor different inventories and stuff with some of the new equipment it'll be able to cook better different things we have panini machines new um coolers i think the new remodeled kitchen is uh pulling lots of children students in for some new and improved meals with food service i think one of the biggest things for us now in this room but this whole hallway area is that we are next to the band room now and the core rooms are there so we actually get to be a department as teachers versus before orchestra is like the fifth grade hallway and band was in the basement with chorus in the basement and we have a really great recording sound system but generally having a state-of-the-art facility with

066the sound system the sound noise cancellation that's going on that's really important and pretty big for us too so certainly thank you to the board of education's vision and the community support for that project it allows us to certainly celebrate all of our accomplishments thanks to our capital region boces communication department that's one video we're working on a second video for the november board meeting that will highlight some of the challenges facing us and rationale behind the high school project so that ends my first report not a question but thank you for sharing that preview of the video and it's just so wonderful to see the spaces in action to see the students using the spaces and to see the the staff really enjoying those spaces and being able to improve their teaching and learning

067so it's definitely the reason why we do the things we do and it's great to see so i just took two quick ones the building action plans that we saw tonight are those uploaded did i miss an upload of those or will they be okay and then just on scheduling um you said that the mental health presentation was scheduled for november 8th in future meeting agendas the the mental health curriculum report has been listed for december 13. we had talked about december uh the availability of heidi green our director of counseling is november so we've moved the library media center overview to december and then as dr coughlin indicated professional learning will be in january okay thank you thank you for those of you that didn't get enough of me on the first go around

068this is the covet update report just trying to give you a lay of the land you'll notice i uploaded everything for your request last week but if you see some changes here i try to go over it today as i usually do with the up-to-date statistics so it may be a little different than what you read but it's still basically the same format as what was released last week item one covet update as the month of october reaches its midpoint today we've had 56 confirmed cases in the district with 38 coming at the middle high school level and only 18 at the elementary level nevertheless those 18 positive cases at the elementary level resulted in 101 quarantines that's an average of 5.6 average across all three elementary buildings whereas there have only been 35 total

069quarantines at the secondary level which you can do the math as less than one quarantine per positive case for the middle schools and high school symptomatic update at this point of the school year the district has sent home about 166 students because they were symptomatic overall considering the number of students we have and the fact that we're almost two months into the year i think that is testimonial to our families who are keeping children home who may be symptomatic so to have only 166 need to be sent home for a couple of months is pretty impressive given our enrollment this includes 53 students at the high school 29 students at each of the middle schools and about an average of 18 children and each of the elementary buildings quarantine analysis i'm pleased to report thanks

070to the work of mr jeff gordon mr bill furlong mr john cunningham of our transportation department and mr russ mccarty of our buildings and grounds department we've tapped into bus monitors and have invited them to work as lunch supervisors to allow our three elementary buildings to divide the students up between the cafeteria and the classrooms during the lunch period to support this endeavor our buildings and grounds department is providing additional support from the maintenance department and substitute custodians to clean these additional spaces during the lunch periods we remain hopeful that this will reduce the number of potential quarantines whenever a positive case is reported under indoor events and spectators during the pandemic with the approach of the winter athletic season and with more indoor events such as special events such as vocal and instrumental music

071concerts as well as theatrical productions school administrators are meeting in advance to establish parameters for spectators at this point in time masks it is certain will be mandated and proper social distancing for those individuals outside of a particular family unit attending event will be required on online tutoring given the 86 quarantines at the elementary level the school district officials have exercised that i didn't update that that should be 101. quarantines at the elementary level school district officials have recruited retired teachers to serve as online tutors for elementary children who might be out on quarantine classroom teachers will still be responsible for posting assignments on schoology and forwarding the instructional print materials home to the students based on the lesson that being said our primary goal is that we indicated earlier is trying to reduce the

072number of quarantines associated with the lunch period and the school bus new york state department of health guidance as we indicated before we're working to comply with county executive order number 22 which requires all school staff to get vaccinated or to submit for weekly testing we've kind of leveled out at about the mid 30s for employees who are participating in weekly covid screening and certainly a shout out to mr gordon and the nurses for helping with that and organizing that and last but not least surveillance testing as mentioned earlier onondaga county continues to collaborate with local area school districts for random testing of students and employees at periodic intervals so over the course of the past four weeks thanks to mr gordon's direction fm has sampled 277 individuals 253 students 24 staff with no reported

073positive cases on the portal at quadrant biosciences that ends my covid report it's almost like so craig just if we could get a little bit more further information on how students that end up in quarantine how they access these retired teachers that are helping with online learning are they proactively are the elementary schools proactively reaching out and setting up those appointments do the parents need to contact the school how exactly does that work i didn't see that posted on our website yet so i know it's probably still in process want me to take that dr tyson so we have one teacher right now who's hired for the cape four and she has an ongoing list that she receives from the building principles and she is contacting parents and then if they are interested in having

074a google meet set up she is arranging that and and following through on their schoolwork that the teachers are providing but in addition to that can provide extension activities as well in addition to the um that tutor who's separate and aside we also have asked our enrichment teachers at the k4 level and at the 5 8 level to be available to help students with organizational work as well great thank you now we're going to try to finalize that this week great thank you and the lunch programming thanks to mr gordon and mr furlong's help begin today and dr tais thank you for and thank you to the administration and all the staff that are stepping up at the elementary level to make that happen just to be clear for the community by spreading the students

075out a little bit more than six feet up my understanding is by spreading students out more than six feet apart during lunch if there is a positive case in their vicinity they will not have to quarantine is that correct correct that's the plan unless the guideline i just said i just positive thoughts and sorry one more question about indoor active indoor events is i understand that this is all the details are being worked out but is there a general move towards having um most events become in person whether they're recognitions or concerts i mean are there just kind of curious where we're headed yeah we're working on that certainly the fallback is virtual uh i know there was a letter that came in and we're trying to make that an in-person event we're that's we're

076trying to do that uh we're all possible uh we are challenged in terms of capacity for indoor events whether it's interscholastic athletics or theatrical concert productions we want to include as many as possible without necessarily rationing the number of tickets that are available that allows family units to sit together but then if they can keep a social distance between the next family unit we'll try to pack as many in as we can for the athletic events and the concerts thank you so i just have one quick follow-up on that and and more on the um the music programs that obviously have always been one of fm's hallmarks we obviously yes have space challenges here but has there been any work done on looking at other venues that we may be able to secure for some

077of these events so that there's a greater capacity the greater number of people that can fit in those even distanced at this point we haven't we've been trying to host everything on site so i think that'll be the other thing is if we're getting pressed in terms of having to limit tickets we may have to look at other venues but if at all possible to keep the costs to a minimum for the taxpayers we're trying to keep them on site no i just yeah i mean i just think about you know obviously as we've heard with some of the funding that we have received covet related that if that's something that should at least be perhaps looked into and and priced out so that we can make some informed decisions on things like that things

078like src is obviously much greater space than anything that we have available if places like occ would even be willing to make those spaces available but even like we've done with our musicals in the spring as you know we all offer multiple performances we typically haven't done that for concerts offering multiple performances but that could be something we could explore as well um no i think you heard our external auditors the only thing i would like to do is publicly thank our assistant superintendent bill furlong also lynn fryer accounting supervisor cheryl conley our treasurer all the account clerks payroll clerks and purchasing agents for such a great job um they didn't say it publicly but they told us at our audit meeting that this was phenomenal work by our team and by far they were

079the most prepared of any of the districts they work with it's just an outstanding team and i think we can't say it often enough so thank you very much the other two brief things is um we're still looking for a deputy claims adjuster auditor i'm sorry uh we'll keep you posted on that and katie phillips our claims auditor will be attending our november 8th meeting for her annual visit so the minutes pretty well covered our meeting i would say we've decided not to host the elected officials meet and greet this year in favor of a more strategic partnership with our elected officials and there is a big election this year that's pretty highly contested so once that election is completed we planned on sending congratulatory letters to all the new elected officials and then engaging

080our administration in figuring out where there could be some strategic partnerships with our local officials we thought that would be a more fruitful use of time and staff and district resources than the meet and greet which is really lovely but we don't really usually have a lot of time to talk substantively about the meat of our work together we did get a preview of the referendum all the community relations work around the referendum and our our team is doing a wonderful job as evidenced by the preview of the video we saw tonight we talked about the changes in cloven 19 reporting and really how and that's been much more targeted to families that may have had an exposure by grade level so that rather than getting a blast every time there's there's cases in the

081district um it's it's much more targeted which is was really in response to the feedback we were hearing from community members and we did get some updates that were already mentioned on the dei training that's upcoming in partnership with ocm boces and we're eager to to see what that looks like and hopefully those dates will be forthcoming soon so we can move forward with those efforts that was pretty much it you know the diversity equity inclusion committee has not met but we'll get a doodle out this week for a the next meeting um next facilities dan uh sure that the minutes you have i won't repeat those just really just two i think just two things that we'll touch on real quickly um wellwood um as as has been said is both significantly ahead of

082schedule and significantly under budget which are both obviously very great achievements by the entire team that's been working on that from the architects to dga and and and certainly the entire uh administration and uh melissa corbin's efforts so it's it's great project great progress that's going to come to a rapid conclusion very soon on wellwood so that's that's great work and then i will say probably the same thing that i will say at every single meeting until this vote happens in december the importance of the high school capital project both from an infrastructure perspective and a programmatic perspective and it being for those who haven't heard me say it before who are watching this meeting is the project that touches the one building through which every single student in this district will pass through and

083so it will therefore impact every single student in this district and has great importance to be able to move forward without other than that i'll leave the facilities to the minutes that you have available to you thank you next finance mark just two highlights the budget calendar you'll note is further on in the agenda very similar to previous years but the highlights will be the budget workshops that will be presented and then the beginning of our long-range financial plan the immediate future looks bright but it's always good to look several years ahead and to see where there might be any budgetary pressures so that we can plan for those that's yep from finance thank you mark um policy ellen is not here and neither is sherry so guess what dan yeah would you like to

084highlight anything from the meeting um really there's there isn't anything significant to report other than there's been significant work done this this continued transition um that we've been in the midst of while doing the the annual policy review is is lengthy is detailed is tedious and is moving forward as best as we can a number of us from dan to sherry myself have been participating in meetings along with fmta representatives the education foundation is struggling right now to have membership and trustees and there's a big concern that they may be losing senior leadership is just as all of us are pulled in different directions so they're trying to recruit members or they may very well have to go dormant as they did prior to for a number of years so i know they want to

085keep things moving forward but it's a real struggle that many hands make light work and right now there are not appearing to be many hands those few people that are still with the foundation or redoubled their efforts but eventually i think it is reaching a breaking point yeah so i'll just echo in on that real quickly um the core people that continue to run the fmed foundation are the same people that were present when it was brought out of its dormant state quite a number of years ago now and have put in an incredible amount of work and over [Music] i think it's closing in on fifty thousand dollars of grants have been awarded to our teachers across the district since it was brought back out um it it has a significant balance and there's

086funding available to do a great many things but it requires people and you know covet has certainly not helped with people's time and ability and and fundraising has been challenged as well um most of the events have had to be canceled or significantly postponed but but it is in need of some good people who have some great time on their hands and energy to do the great work that that foundation is able to do you know ultimately that foundation exists to fund projects for our teachers for the benefit of our students so i know so many people are so highly invested in their their hsas um but that is again another organization that that you know funds and touches on educational opportunities for our teachers and students at every one of our buildings and so

087you know throughout the community if there's anybody interested in learning more about that i would highly encourage them to get in touch with seth jolly who's the current president so he can talk to them about opportunities and and it really is broken up and pretty uh set up so that you know you can be involved and have a great impact without having to spend a great number of hours um so for anybody in the community that is listening and maybe interested in a place to get involved where there can be great benefit to this district that would be a great place to have a look at thank you um as i said earlier our legislative liaison is in the nisba annual meeting virtually at the moment she just texted me it's almost done so she

088may just make it here before we adjured oh and now our student board member hannah with your first report welcome and thank you very much hannah spent well with an hour and a half meeting with me to get our board orientation done so thank you very much hannah yeah no thank you um so most of the topics that i wanted to talk about tonight actually correlate with what dr kilmer said in his building plan earlier this evening so um basically the welcoming back of students to the high school we started with the link crew day which were mostly juniors and seniors who signed up to be link crew leaders and it was the welcoming of the freshmen which was a really great day that we got back this year because unfortunately last year it was

089a very short and it was restricted obviously because of the pandemic so i know a lot of students at the high school felt like it was a really great day to be able to introduce themselves to the freshmen and show them around and talking to some of the upperclassmen they believe that being able to incorporate link crew throughout the year would help uh the freshmen like grow at the high school and also be able to get involved in more events because as i said it's only just one day with the freshmen and if you don't specifically reach out to them they could get lost in the shuffle which is something we don't want to happen and then um the overall consensus at the high school is many students are very grateful to be able to

090be back five days a week and that some of the social distancing guidelines have become less restrictive and they enjoy the wellness period that has been added to all of our schedules which is either at the beginning or the end of our fifth period it's a time while the weather is nice we all get to go outside and eat and talk with our friends and being able to have that 20-minute break of taking our masks off i know a lot of students have enjoyed that and they're hoping especially the underclassmen of who i've spoken to as the freshmen and the sophomores they hope it's something that will continue to stay in the schedule for years to come another thing is students were really grateful that uh sporting events came back that's always been a big

091thing at the high school so we had our homecoming two weeks ago which uh the class officers helped organize for homecoming floats and i know like overall school spirit has definitely increased over the past 18 months like from when the time i was a freshman to now being a senior i noticed like our school spirit that entire week it included freshmen all the way to seniors and we also had a handball tournament and in replacement of the homecoming dance and we ended up having 25 teams on the turf which was an amazing turnout where in years previous we only had 10 to 12 teams so you could see like students want to get back to having activities being together as a whole community and having the ability to have these tournaments outside now while the

092weather is nice it gave us the ability to have multiple like numerous teams while social distancing and just having that space on the turf to be able to be outside and be with your friends it was something that everyone looked forward to and it ended up being a really great event the senior class also had our senior kickoff event which was in replacement of our prom that was cancelled in the spring due to just like the uncertainty of kovit and not being able to fundraise throughout the whole year so we ended up having 152 seniors show up which is a pretty decent number because our class is 323 students so we felt that you know we were able to get almost like half of the class show up to this event and raise money for

093our ball and it was just something great for all of us to do and spend time outside with having snacks lawn games and music and then so far talking to students there's just been a very positive feedback of being in school not having fortunately not having to do any google meets for those students who are able to be in school and just the ability to have a lot of class discussions that's one of the feedbacks i've gotten back so even though dr kilmer stated that our scheduling for our classes is short of a 40 minute period i know there's been a lot of class discussions more recently in more of the humanities courses and i think that's really um something that students have become more grateful for i know in one of my ap comparative

094government classes we spend multiple classes just discussing what students want to discuss it's a very like discussion based class and all the students in the class can voice their own own opinion on certain issues so i think they're appreciative of that but as dr kilmer said like the 40 minutes does fly by so maybe possibly looking in the future to extend having fewer classes but longer periods could potentially be helpful and then the last um topic i wanted to bring up tonight was in regards uh to the mental health initiative because it is something that is being widely discussed by the student body at the high school and especially in our community and i just wanted to say that i talked to numerous students throughout the past two weeks in all grades grade levels mostly

095juniors and seniors just because it's it was easier in my own schedule to reach out and speak to them and i'm more familiar with them but students feel there's a split between students who feel that there are enough resources available at the high school regarding mental health issues and they feel that they could go to their counselors they become familiar with their counselors after being there for two three years and they feel like the resources we have at fm are very helpful but then there are also some students who feel that um they don't know what resources are available available to them in regards to mental health so i think that is one point where it would be very helpful to students if more resources became available even just of them learning where to go

096to the school psychologist or even i know like the liaison and counselors and getting rid of like the idea that they're academic counselors and not just just academic counselors and they're there to support you mental health as well i think if that got expressed to the student body as well that would definitely help with some of the tensions right now regarding those issues so that is everything i had for the student report thank you excellent job thank you very much we really appreciate it any questions at all so i think what i'm hearing you say hannah is that students many students just don't have the awareness of who and where right where do you find a psychologist right in our building yeah so the one thing i got back with feedback wasn't that they felt

097fm lacked mental health resources it was they felt that there wasn't um like the ability to like reach out for it because uh one suggestion i received was at the beginning of a school year having some sort of assembly or powerpoint or letter that went out to students saying if you are in need of any mental health um or you want to go speak to someone if there was like some type of way to get this information to the students i think that would be very helpful for them because i think that that's the one area that the student body felt was lacking was the ability to know what the resources were available to them i just want to echo one piece so hannah thank you for that and and i think two of the

098things that you talked about tie in very much together one is the school spirit one is the mental health side because i think we all know we've talked about it a lot that one of the the most detrimental things to our students in in prior to this year was the isolation when we were remote and um i i've had the opportunity at many of these events that hamwel tournament was through the roof it was awesome um but at all the athletic events i i've talked to a lot of parents that i know a lot of other districts and when when our district rolls in or they come into our district right now they're blown away by what's going on at these events with our students turning out they just want to be together and they're

099craving those opportunities so to go back dr thais to what you were talking about before as you look at indoor spectator things i i just want to ask that you keep that in mind that these kids want to be together with their classmates so whatever we can do as a district to accommodate that at the greatest extent possible is is just really vital to to these students and and really to their mental well-being right now um one thing i want to add um is even the difference between like for example today i had pe and the difference between last year of only having the ability to walk around the track for our 40-minute gym period to today even though it was a rainy day we were able to be in house 2 gym and we

100were playing a game of all of us together you could completely tell it it was a different atmosphere from just being alone walking and isolated to being able to participate in a team sport and it was a class of freshmen and sophomores playing against juniors and seniors and i've just never seen a more like positive like 40-minute class period no matter how competitive everyone was i think everyone was just so grateful to have those like team sports together again even like as funny as it sounds it's just so helpful to all our students one thing i'd be interested in hearing in a future report is ways that students feel that we can get there other than you because you can't talk to everybody you join this is a fantastic report but how do students feel

101that we can improve student voice in our district us hearing from students about different issues and we have a lot of minority groups of students whether it's students from you know their sexual orientation or their race or religious whatever um how i'll be interested in hearing um like what some of those groups of students feel as far especially as far as mental health like are there specific services that can support um those groups that they are looking for information about and um you know what do they feel are some of the services that are more helpful to them so i really those two things you know how can we improve our students our engagement with our students as far as hearing their voices and then these different groups of students who may not always be

102at the table what services do they feel that they need as from rest of the district thank you very much for a great report appreciate it okay next on the agenda item 3.01 approval of the minutes from september 13th is there a motion to approve the minutes from the september 13th board of education meeting thank you rebecca a second from daryl any discussion yeah just two things one is in section 4.03 sherry had gone through the nisba resolutions with us during that meeting and as i understood the board authorized charity act on behalf of the board with respect to those resolutions or certain of those resolutions which is obviously where she is and what she's doing tonight i just think that it would be appropriate if the board is authorizing somebody to act for the

103board in a voting matter that we identify in the minutes which resolutions we have authorized that person to vote for or against so if we could add those into that that would be very helpful and the second is 5.07 i wrote to all of you after this meeting i don't think that i think from the process perspective 5.07 is accurate although the process itself was not but the resolution that was that's reflected in the draft minutes is not the one that was voted on because there was a motion in a second to approve this district welcoming statement as presented it was then during discussion there was a proposal to amend it there was never a motion or a second to amend it and then there was a vote so the vote was actually on the

104original version that was presented not on the amended version so i don't think that the minutes on that section accurately reflect what was actually voted on or approved so to your first point we certainly can't add the language in about which motions i'm sorry which of the resolutions the board asked sherry to approve in regards to the welcome statements my understanding we approved the amendment statement which i'm trying to find it now changed it to individuals i believe as opposed to racial and religious so that's my understanding of what we improve i understand you have concerns about the process that we followed but i do believe that's what we've it's my understanding is that's what we approved so i just what's there is what was discussed as the edit to it but the motion and

105the second was to approve the district welcome statement as presented if there's then an edit to what's going to be approved or not approved as a matter of process that would require another motion and second and that never happened so the district welcome statement that is in these minutes was not ever properly voted on or approved so what i would say to that then is i'm going to go and try let me get to the right spots was the one second let me get to where it was five point hold on i've got all my tabs open maybe it is a good idea that i stop opening so many tabs one second uh this was september 13th so the difference in the two statements is the change from individuals i'm sorry from there were two

106different groups that were specified there was some board discussion about changing those um that we didn't want to we wanted to make sure that no one felt left out and so that's why there was a suggestion made to change it to individuals again hold on one second i'm trying to get to the right i'm sorry what was that darrell 5.0 5.07 so okay the fayetteville manly central school district is committed to creating a collaborative learning environment where all members feel included respected valued and connected by affirming racial i'm sorry referring individual identities fostering relationships and recognizing diversity as an asset for teaching and learning so if i recall correctly the prior language was racial and religious correct is that what it was was it racial and religious does anyone remember is it in the minute

107somewhere sarah was it racial and religious was it racial this racial let's take a look real quick and make sure what it was well what i'm going to say is i have no problem with adopting that original statement if the process wasn't followed and that's what you're telling me was improved the original statement i'm good with approving that i'm good with changing that in the minutes to reflect the original statement i'm happy to do that my point is not the content of this because i had asked that that be changed from what was presented my point is merely the process the the board when this board voted on it i understand i can't speak for everybody else here but i think everybody understood that they were voting on it as amended during discussion my point

108simply is to vote on something that is amended during discussion requires a new motion and a second so just from a simple process perspective we've done that all the time when we make a motion then we have a discussion somebody comes up with a change or something else we have a new motion we have a new second that just wasn't done in that instance so so what do you suggest we do dan in the future we should make sure we i don't think it's in the future i think that right now we're just talking about the minutes the minutes from from what actually happened reflect it other than what was approved what i think the problem is is that from a legal technical perspective the wrong one was approved it's not the one that stated

109in the minute so what should happen darrell to your point is is outside of this current agenda item of of just minutes approval is that there should be an agenda item where somebody moves and seconds to adopt the district welcoming statement as it had been amended which is what's reflected in these minutes so that would be in tonight's minutes correct that would that could be done tonight on so just to be clear you're only your only question or concern is that we just go back and vote to approve the amended version that's your only i think the minutes should be corrected so that they say that what was actually approved was as presented not the amended which is not as i understood it what most of this board wanted to see there well and then

110tonight there should be a vote and a second to actually approve the correct edited version of it so i think in the minutes it should reflect i mean i understand your interpretation of what we did approve and we certainly can change the minutes to reflect that there was some cons there was some confusion as to which one was approved normally that needs to be done at the meeting where the issue is raised the vote needs to be discussed and challenged at that particular meeting however i think the greater issue here is making sure our welcome statement is approved and we're ready to move forward and not keep going back to that particular issue so we can amend the agenda and the reason it wasn't done at that meeting was you cut me off that's why

111it didn't happen that i called for i asked i called the question because there had been quite a bit of discussion in your follow-up email you referenced a personal agenda i'm not sure what you meant by that but i will say i do have a personal agenda in approving a welcome statement for our district and we did have discussion and it was seven to two so when you say i cut you off i individually cannot do anything unless i have a majority of the board voting in supporting that so let's be clear there i do not but you did not but you did not do that you did not do that one second please you did not do that one second so i called the question and then there was a vote i did not

112say we're gonna prove this it was a there was a vote of seven to two now to wrap this up because we have a lot more to get to uh we can amend the agenda this evening to approve the amended language as four clean up these minutes i think we should table these minutes and look at them again to make sure that they are actually reflected as to what happened i don't think we're going to resolve that particular issue tonight so we can table these minutes to the next meeting and just approve the revised agenda as a action item in a few minutes after i get to the other minutes is the board okay with that that good day that would be a motion to table them that somebody would second so that we don't

113have a repeat of the same problem we're talking about it now okay and i'll let you make that motion so that that's yours it's so cool right it's been done correctly that's yours go right out okay thank you thank you for now thank you okay so um all right it's a motion then to table the minutes um and then a motion to amend the agenda as well um to add item let's do that as uh i think that would be 7.01 in turning executive session in the 7.02 is that correct sarah right i was going to put it before i was going to move executive session down but i can make it item eight point all right so we'll make the vote to admit sorry amend 8.01 and then personnel is 8.02 any questions before

114we vote about the amendment or the motion i'm sorry the motion all right so emotions one was to table one was to amend any questions about either motion is that correctly formed are we good with that before we vote i'll do the motion on the second thing you just talked about you separate them you mean you want to i made it one i made it into one motion but no problem with separating this we'll move it along let's do two okay so first motion then is to table the september 13 minutes and thank you jason and a second from mark any discussion on tabling the minutes although the favor please raise your hand to indicate i i anyone opposed or stating all right next motion is to move to add to the agenda item 8.02

115which is going to be amending the um the welcome statement thank you kelly and a second from rebecca any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed her stating perfect now we will move on to the september 20th special meeting minutes is there a motion to approve the september 20th meeting minutes as presented thank you jason and a second from daryl any discussion of those minutes all in favor please indicate i i even opposed or abstaining next item i'm sorry 3.03 the october 4th special meeting minutes is there a motion to approve those minutes thank you daryl in a second from kelly any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or abstaining thank you mark one abstention all right so 3.04 removed next would be the budget calendar

116is there a motion at the board of education of the fayetteville manly central school district hereby approve the 2022-23 budget calendar as presented is there a motion thank you rebecca is there a second thank you jason discussion of the budget calendar all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or abstained next item 3.06 annual policy review is there a motion that the board of education of the stable manly central school district has completed their annual policy review and hereby move the revised policies 1110 1900 and 52-chan into second reading at the next possible board meeting is there a motion thank you dan in a second for mark any discussion so this is not this is on the others that we reviewed and i know i read in the policy minutes i know there's

117two folks missing here um but i did notice that we still kept in a couple of gendered pronouns in the policy 1530 the minutes and [Music] from what i read in the report from i think two policy committees ago there was apparently some discussion about waiting until we had a dei policy before we did that and i just think there's there's a lot of there are a lot of issues there to come out and i don't know that this is something that would specifically be listed in a policy so to me again when we're talking about policies there's no reason for there to be a gender in any policy these are professional positions that are listed and you know the one in question is very easily you could replace that with the actual position that

118it's referring to and i don't even think it sounds that awkward so again i think that was the only one in this group that i saw but i i think we agreed as a board that we were going to do that going forward so i would like to see that change we did make that agreement i noticed that in the minutes too that there was discussion at the policy committee meeting about not removing gender pronouns until after there was a dei policy but the board did agree to do that and i think we need to honor that and remove those gender pronouns from our policy dan do you have any feedback i think you were at that meeting yeah there was there was definitely discussion about it and the fact that some of them are

119very simple and easy changes and some of them are are far less simple and easy changes and on things that everybody on the policy committee recognizes would be changed but the expectation when we had that discussion about pronouns in policies was also at a time when we were expecting that we were going to be much further along if not already having this dei policy completed that went back to administrative review and we didn't get eyes back on it until our just our most recent policy meeting last week which came back as three different versions from the administration administrative team not one and so that the there wasn't clarity among the policy committee on where and what direction that was taking and there are we're working from multiple sets of these policies because we have the

120existing we have the new nisba versions that we're trying to convert across to and there there's a there's a just a fundamental organizational and and to forget just you know um as a matter of policy just just from an organizational clarity thing of where and when this cutoff is going to be made that that change gets made where we end up with very inconsistent policies that some have it some don't and so the discussion was that we were tracking all of those that needed to be made and that if we can get this dei policy completed that we had the expectation that would have been completed many many months ago then those can be made in one general sweeping approval at that point in time as opposed to just haphazard as we're as we're getting

121to them so that's the discussion that we had obviously you know it's the it's not a decision that the policy committee merely makes recommendations that was the recommendation of the committee was to hold them until we make that one sweeping change across those that sarah was tracking that was the recommendation that came out of policy i'm confused aren't we just taking gender pronouns it doesn't matter what version of the policy we're looking at we're just saying there should be no gender policy gender pronouns in there so it doesn't matter what version every single version every single policy is going to have it removed so i don't see why it's confusing why is it confusing i tried to come to policy remember dan didn't work out too well when we're doing policy review policy review if

122we're not making changes doesn't require a change to policy so it's not a first reading second reading policy changes are all first review are all first reading second reading so we can get into first reading second reading on every single policy individually as we go forward at every single meeting or we can make and store and track those changes make them all in one and put it all forward in one bucket i don't want to wait one more minute to take to make sure to follow through with the will of the board on this and remove these gender pronouns i don't see any reason to warehouse this and and stockpile pronouns waiting for us to do it in one clean sweep i have no problem with adding these to each agenda and cleaning them up

123kelly you were going to say something no i don't i don't want to talk again if anyone else has something to say i just think it almost seems like more efficient to do it this way i mean if if that means we have to pull a policy from you know from this group that we're not you know and we need to put that into even the first on the first reading or second i'd be happy to do that i mean it's we're literally talking about changing like four words so i think it you know as we identify it might be easier than going through the entire manual and looking for all of that all at once just seems like really daunting so i'd rather just catch it now and maybe you know i i don't

124know that's just my my point was that they are being caught now they just weren't being put forward to first and second reading now are there any gender pronouns do we missed in the ones here kelly which one had the gender pronoun that wasn't removed fifteen thirty fifteen thirty so we can go to fifth to uh so we've got like eight here and there's just that one 15 and i'm just going to real quickly does anyone know so i don't oh here it is his or her designee is that the one yeah it's that second sentence actually has both of them so it could easily be replaced with clerk and then superintendent in both of those okay does it require a motion a second and a vote to make this well we have to we'd

125have to vote to approve the amended policy with the policy with those changes in there so his her becomes the first one becomes um clerk and the second one becomes superintendent i understand that but i mean going forward so that it's done as we review and pass yeah for every one of them it's a policy change so it's first reading second reading yes and i think we can look into approving them in one motion as well one thing i've noticed in our both these meetings is we we clear out a lot of items on the agenda by grouping together the items and voting instead of doing individual items and that's maybe that's something we can look into to clean up so that there isn't that list of that long list and also if we can

126do that with like so i'm not reading the whole resolutions that'd be great too um all right so for this one what i is there any other comment from the board or any thoughts from the board about this i respect the work of the policy committee it is a lot of work so i understand the process of maybe a different preference to do thing in things in batches um i personally feel like this is low-hanging fruit that we can start to make an impact now and so much of the other work just takes time because we are working with multiple stakeholders and multiple and it's just um it just has to follow the process but this is something that we can do that can have some impact now so i would prefer to move forward

127as we'd agreed [Laughter] okay so sorry the motion is to move the revised policies in the second reading so 1530 is that in first it's in neither so we'll just pull that back and bring that back to it's it's it's neither in first nor in second the only ones that are in are before the board currently tonight and this motion are 1911 10 and 52 times but i think it should be made clear the board would like those pronouns removed and then it'll be brought back to the next meeting okay so um i believe i had a first and second for the motion any further discussion all those in favor please state i i am opposed or abstaining just trust us um let's see ah 3.07 board and district or slash superintendent goals um i

128think we're actually we're not too far off schedule so at this point um we do not we um do not we are going to approve i'm sorry or discuss new goals for the district um superintendent and the board so we have our previous board goals and we have prior goals that we gave to craig so do we want to start with superintendent or do we want to start with board well i just want to clarify like was we mean district goals because right board versus district not board versus superintendent and superintendent well this is a conversation we always get i know right so and that's the thing i purposely superintendent says to me like based on evaluation district says to me like what are the broader district goals like we talked about last year like

129this school start study and opening the buildings and all that i am okay with whatever the board wants to do i just remembered it last year we had a really lengthy discussion about it so that's why i kind of used both but i'm open to however we want to do it i just want to move into the meat of it which is the actual goals that we need to come up with this evening so if anyone has a clean way they'd like to do it i'm more than willing to go along with that i believe dr tice gave us a draft of what he thinks our district or superintendent goals should be um are they i don't know if they're attached here but since we already have that um since we already have that i

130think that might be a good place to start since they're drafted and you know what it starts with the superintendent of schools will so i just put it in executive countdown just refresh or ducks well while we're doing that though i thought we also had made some progress towards talking about board goals was there some i thought there was some work or do you have some notes that we can work off of all my notes have is that it's last year's we didn't finish either of them so we discussed that those are very logical board goals i don't think we drafted anything in general so last year's board goals were uh did everyone have a copy of those the district okay do you remember differently i don't remember drafting but i do remember discussing where

131we were headed that we already had a yeah i think what we discussed is that they're so similar to last year that we don't have to make any anything new it's just updating last year okay so dr tyson thank you for adding that so he has three in here um let's see i'll read them for the sake of the audience the superintendent of schools will continue to make progress on the new york state ed board of regents culturally responsive sustaining education framework the ei initiative beginning with an overview of the four principles one welcome welcoming and affirming environment two high expectations and rigorous instruction three inclusive curriculum and assessment and four ongoing professional learning and supported by study groups at both national there's a word missing in there somewhere um national learning and national and

132local levels so this goal is centered around this is a dei goal i would count i would say i want to be the feedback that i'm hearing from people is they'd like like some very specific action items associated with each with our goals so are there specific things that you are thinking of in terms of this particular goal certainly i mean we've said to educate ourselves before we just rush in to make changes as you mentioned earlier the ocm boces is taking our idea i think in trying to allow george theo harris and his book in terms of five practice pride practices for equity focused schools to allow it to be a conversation that occurs throughout central new york so i know all of you have a copy of that book already the other book

133is from aasa this was tim schreiber you have a copy of that now our other group that is working with aasa is taking a look at the call to unite it's about taking a look at it from an inclusion perspective i think when a lot of people hear dei they focus on race as the only diversity and it's important to take a look at other things that what brings us together rather than what separates us so i think the inclusionary perspective from tim shriver a lot of you know his mother was eunice kennedy shriver who founded the special olympics he is the ceo of the special olympics and i had the pleasure of hearing him speak at one of the more recent aasa functions so being able to i think educate ourselves is the first

134action step you heard a little of it tonight as we begin to take a look at library media center audits and things like that there's things we can do behind the scenes but i think we need to better understand what are the expectations as we go forward so right now to me it's doing our due diligence to understand the issue before we just jump in and start making changes under um professional learning maybe this is not the place where it would be but we've had some pushback from the community towards faculty in regards to different things that are being taught and i don't know what this would look like but i think there needs to be some clarity provided to staff and the community as far as you know what are the the rules but

135you know our faculty is they're they're very professional and they're teaching our students pretty much what they've been doing for a very long time but now we're seeing posts on social media we're seeing you know there's um people there are a microscope i guess i would say so i don't know if we need training like or an understanding for our staff as far as like what our expectations are and what and how we're going to be supportive of them and maybe some education from the community but i think that's a gap i think there's a gap there personally that we need to address i'm not sure if that's how that looks but i think under that particular goal that's something that we should look at like one of our new one of our new favorite

136sayings is we don't want to get out ahead of our skis did i say that the right way so i mean i think we need to better understand the issue so i think there are some faculty that are well intended and you're right there may be posts on social media that we are getting out ahead of our skis i mean i think the important thing is is we better understand it as administrators i know district curriculum council is starting to investigate the issue they're having the discussions in the buildings i just think we need to have that background training we can't get out ahead of our skis it doesn't mean it's not worthwhile work it doesn't mean it's not important work not to use double negatives but we just cannot you know rush in where

137angels fear to tread i think we've got to do our homework first to better understand it so i think it would be helpful for the goal to be a little bit more action-oriented to what that means to educate ourselves because it sounds like there's a lot of work already starting on the audit on the framework in the in at the building level some work for professional development some maybe board training how are we unifying what we're learning and what we're doing so we're all on the same page because to me this these four principles like i don't even know i i don't i'd like to know what they like where where do we start at the ground level and build ups so is there someone that could train us on these um on these pieces

138for specifically for the for the board of regents expectations that sounds like the administrators are very schooled and these are understand these issues already but we as a board i feel like i don't other than reading the pdf we got last year i'm not super informed yet and we're trying to set that up for the retreats coming forward nothing's been finalized at this point but we're trying to give the board some of that background so again these are 30 000 foot view goals here i mean if the board is looking for a punch list a specificity we can work that out but this was trying to just approach it from that thirty thousand foot view i just i don't i'm sorry i just feel like we're we go in this circle like every two two

139and a half years of what goals should look like and we we had a very lengthy series of discussions about ensuring that when we did goal setting that we did smart goals so something was specific and measurable and achievable and relevant and time-bound and and i i couldn't i i look at these and i don't honestly see any of that other than relevant in here so i i like the theories of these items that are listed here but but they have to be more specific of what is going to be done what what the actual expectation in what time frame and and how do we measure whether it's attained or not and i just look at something that says continue to make progress on something is not specific time-bound measurable you need that as much

140as we do i mean for you to come to us and say i met my goal you need to know what did you need to do to meet that goal your your idea of that may be very different than ours based on you know something that's set forth this way so you know i i i think it's a great concept but you know i we we have to find the path to take this to smart goals and you heard some smart goals tonight from the building action plans and i have developed smart goals in the past these are 30 000 foot view goals i mean if the board wants to get into the weeds and that's certainly the pleasure of the board we i can bring smart goals back but the question is what is

141the direction what is the target saying we seem to just kind of circle this every two two and a half years that we go smart goals thirty thousand foot goals smart goals third so i i i thought we had settled on smart goals if this board feels differently then you know that's that's remains to be heard i thought that's the direction we had agreed that we were going to be in so that when it's your goals and we get to a mid-year or a year end to talk about you know were these achieved or were they not we have a way to actually have that and you have the strategic plan and you have the annual report and the posters that's there lists the four priority areas the buildings built their goals off of those

142priority areas as you heard tonight so the question is what is our compass just the strategic plan we don't need to do any of these i mean we're i guess what i'm wrestling with is what is the context so to me these are contextual goals that is we do our life's work should we be paying attention to dei issues for example so to me these 30 000 foot view isn't good or bad compared to smart goals to me this provides the context on why we do the smart goals i think dr tyson with this first one i'm not hearing anyone not supportive of this particular goal i think what we need you to come back with is a couple of different specific items that we're going to do over the or you're going to do

143over the next year under this so if we call this the the framework for that goal or the the twenty thousand dollar twenty thousand dollar twenty thousand foot view or thirty thousand foot view whatever you were saying then under that view at least uh two or three specific things that we're going to do so welcoming and affirming environment what specifically are we going to you're going to do towards towards that particular item so i think this i believe everybody's good with well we just want a couple of very specific things that are going to occur under that and that would be the measurable yeah that would be the measurable thing so that's what i think you should come back with so i think i know we've talked about those like a ton of times and

144i i think we've discussed how some of these maybe would span years right i know we've talked about that before i do think it's i guess i mean we heard these great presentations and we have like the strategic plan like why are we not just evaluating against that every year like it seems like we keep trying to come up with like different goals but any major initiative we have and honestly the way i look at these are kind of initiatives like things that we're going to focus on but are strategic they should be reflected in our strategic plan and then we should be measuring against the plan to the extent that we you know to whatever degree we need to do that at a district level and maybe we need to you know maybe we

145need you craig to drill down and to make something a smart goal that's related to something that's already there but it seems like i don't want to reinvent what's already been there and maybe we have to just start the cycle again like before the next you know plan on a page gets developed or as it's getting developed we decide you know that everything needs to be aligned like you know the dei stuff and and certainly long-range you know facilities planning and i mean i think that's already part of the plan so if we already have something we've already we already have ways of tracking what's happening then it seems to me like that's should be the framework i concur i mean i i think in terms of the dei for example for those of you

146that remember the strategic planning binder and i've provided updates in the past in terms of deming's plan do study act cycle we are in the fifth year of it if you go to your fifth tab which means to look at the mission and vision again so as an administrative cabinet we've already had discussions which i believe i've shared with the board i know you spent a lot of time on the welcoming statement in terms of the process tonight but one of the things that the cabinet talked about is the importance of the welcoming statement then being the first paragraph of the new dei policy which i think is important and then the last part is should not a couple of words be inserted into the new mission statement to memorialize that in the next iteration

147so if you i'm happy to lay that kind of detail out and to me those are the goals is developing to your point and again this is just an example based on the first bullet but there's the plan get the welcoming statement in make sure the welcoming statement's the first paragraph of the dei policy and then finally modify the mission statement to include a sentence fragment that addresses our commitment to dei because if we don't memorialize it it won't have the sustainability going forward which will be measured to kelly's point in the future plan on a page you know and so i just think where we're looking to merge vision mission priority areas that is what will memorialize it and we all laid that out as a governance team what is it now five years

148ago when we first started the pdsa cycle believe it or not folks we're up to dusting off the vision and mission this year sarah wants to hear that all the posters we created now now taking a look at the mission and vision and mission and vision and i don't think it's going to change dramatically but this is our chance to tweak it not to put it on a wall not to wait a decade or more before we alter it again but do we still believe in that going forward so i agree i mean tonight's presentation and the articulation it's to me is wonderful i mean that checks a lot of boxes right there but that almost seems like a joint board district goal in another to revisit the mission and vision you know related to

149the dei policy work that's going to happen i mean then the way that you describe that it sounds to me like the board goals are all tied to the strategic plan but i'm sorry the district goals are tied to the strategic plan in alignment with the strategic plan but essentially we're pulling out focus area you're pulling out focus areas for the district within the strategic plan like highlighting three areas as we're honing in on the strategic plan and with that it's just helpful to have the specificity so we can re even if it's reiterating things that were in the action plans tonight as examples it's helpful for us as as we refresh and look back on the year to say well these this is what we meant by each of these you know one two

150three and four so i think we're saying the same things it may just be presenting it in a different way that's pulling out what's already in the strategic plan and providing more examples in context and again these were my drafts for you to consider [Music] i mean it was better than starting with a blank easel you know i mean feel free to mark them up chalk them up i mean thank you that is this isn't trying to sell a bill of goods this is gives us time to edit and modify as we see fit i mean i think at the end of the day like at the end of this year we're going to look we should be looking back at that those strategic the strategic plan and everything that was presented and see where

151we ended up and you know we might not hit it all but you know what does the progress look like where did we end up what had to change because of some unforeseen thing or just you know new learning or whatever but it seems like those are the things that we should be kind of measuring our progress against because they've already been so well vetted and thought out by you know everyone at the district just just to skip ahead you have three bullets on this document if you take if you look at the second bullet you take the first sentence and split it into two sentences those are two very specific measurable achievable goals as is the the sentence that follows i mean and the third bullet is the same i think there's there's great

152specificity in in each thing that's within the second two bullets they just need to be you know a couple of the sentences need to be cut in half into two separate goals i just i just i'm just missing that in the first bullet so what i'm saying about trying to get these two you know detailed and measurable and achievable i just i don't i wouldn't know how to measure success or accomplishment or where we should be come june off of the first bullet other thoughts from the board jason so i i would agree with that i think the one thing that i also see that's still kind of missing in here for me um is we're still in the middle of a pandemic we're still dealing with covid because we're still getting coveted updates at

153every board meeting that we have so i think we need to have something in there um related to that um and really to build upon um you know one of my suggestions would be is it's really hannah this goes back to you and your senior class whatever this board can do and whatever the superintendent and the administration can do to make sure that you guys have events right so big goal for me personally is make sure you guys all have a senior ball you didn't get a junior prom so we owe you a senior ball um hopefully that's not outside under a tent it would be really nice to have it in a nice facility and as a board member i feel we owe that to you guys so you know i'm not saying that

154needs to be the specific goal but things like that craig i think that we owe it to ourselves um as a board to include that you know within craig's goals this year and i think to um you know so far this year the school has been great we've done everything you know i think we've done everything we can so far to keep kids in school and keep activities going you know it's definitely going to be a challenge come this winter i know that but i think that we need to have that on on your goals for this year i'll open it up to other board members but i i think it's important that we still keep that forefront and that that doesn't just fade away so you mean like a broad goal that we'll continue

155to do everything we can to keep our schools open and safe for students so they can have as many events as possible because there are so many outside factors that we can't i mean regulations and whatever so not to specifically say we're going to be able to do x y and z for the students but that we're going to create a climate where we're going to be able to do as much as we possibly can under whatever rules were operating it at that time right and that we still continue to keep it to the forefront i just i feel like if we don't make it a goal it'll get lost so i think it still needs to be elevated to that level it's still got to be a goal for this year so we don't

156lose sight of that on top of the dei work and the capital projects and everything else we have going on i just think it's still important that we keep it there and keep it memorialized the other thing we discussed in regards to covet is getting having further discussions about the impact on student achievement and continuing to get that information as well so i'm seeing like a more broader goal related to covet you know it's it's i mean uh working towards that fm high standard and everything in under this situation the best that we can considering how taxing it is absolutely taxing it is on everybody and that there is a lot that we can't control so how we're going to wordsmith that be interesting but i see where you're going with that i think you

157could include mental health in that piece as well so in a way i think i like your point jason because i think this works already being done regardless of whether you make it a goal but it clearly it should be a goal and it will be something we can report out on and hopefully be proud of at the end of the school year on all the really like amazing work that was just done to to make changes throughout the year to be flexible and reduce quarantines um so i think that makes sense and then to add in certainly student performance but also student mental health in light of continuing to operate in a pandemic and the effects from remote and hybrid instruction last year other thoughts from the board so and i'm going to save

158the word smithing too afterwards but i'm seeing a goal related to the well-being of our students academically and mentally and our i think our overall staff in terms of operating in a covered pandemic situation we can certainly wordsmith that out and then i want to go back to what we were what we were saying about pulling out goals from the strategic plan so just to make sure we're all on the same page what is our standing for that piece everyone make sure we're on the same page go ahead i don't i think the second and third goals to dan's point can kind of stand alone and possibly just be cleaned up and broken down by separating each sentence as kind of its own subpart of that goal i think it's the first bullet here on

159the culturally responsive sustaining education framework that perhaps craig could just take a stab at itemizing a little bit more and pulling in from the strategic plan and we can kind of react to that because it's hard for us to know what's in his head and what what makes sense in light of the plans that are ongoing so then we have four goals we have the covet one and then we're going to have him do a little more work on the first one and keep the third and fourth goals well i mean these are the four that we're working with and we're going to wordsmith those out so it may be bullets it may be separate items but four headings that we're working with is everyone okay with that okay great we will forward smith all

160right in terms of board goals so we did have some discussion that we were not finished with our current board goals and that we needed because actually the second one the board will examine ways the district can promote a healthy climate when addressing student discipline and how restorative justice practices can be incorporated into policy in our code of conduct only we have any work on that one this year and i think that's an important one and i think that's when we can get a lot of student voice involved um so i'd like to see us keep that one whatever everyone else's thoughts yeah no i mean i think that's important especially now that you know i'm hearing at the building level talk about you know um through the various activities that are being planned a

161lot about peer-to-peer kind of interaction and you know positive interaction so i think you know certainly at least you know pieces of restorative justice involve peer-to-peer mediation and things like that so i think that learning you know at least educating us as to as to you know what that means and how that might relate to the code of contact which you know hasn't as at least since i've been on the board not really changed much so i'd personally like to keep that as a goal going forward everyone go with that okay so circling back to the first one the board will strive to better educate itself about diversity equity inclusion and the impact of discrimination in the fayetteville melee central school district and engage in a board retreat in other discussions to evaluate how the

162board may support the district administration and further embracing acceptance and action against prejudice and discrimination of all forms i feel like that's a lot a lot said but not a lot done so i think i'd like to keep this broader goal but put some items in here that we're actually going to do anyone does anyone have any thoughts off them yeah i think we just we agreed to come up with a dei policy i mean that's our goal this year and then we tie we work with the district to tie that into the you know revamping or revising to what our extent it is of the mission and vision statement so developing a dei policy tied into revamping the mission and vision statement and again we'll get the language our reading uh we have at

163least two two books oh that's right we want to continue and the training was dr theo harrison his book that's why he's going to say that the boces uh training and the boces training okay that is so the dei policy tied into the revised mission and vision statement dr theo harris's training and the boces training i would just add that training is great but i think we need to kind of move it into action so to the extent our administrators are are doing the same trainings um even thinking about the restorative justice piece i mean we're not administrators we're not really schooled and disciplined so i don't think we can explore those issues and we can continue to learn on dei but i think i think working with our administrators on brainstorming ways that we

164can support on the policy side and we can support them on the action steps will be important because at a certain point i think the community is going to be really clamoring for more than just trainings so in the book and i can't remember what chapter it is in dr theo harris's book i think it's for that's where there's work done related to data which is something the board wants to see so that could be where we connect in with the administrators i don't know what chapters are on right now or if that is the correct chapter but one of those chapters focuses on data and having that information brought to the board to see what is it telling us about our school because i think we need that data to develop our action items

165some of our action items anyway but that is one of the chapters in that book yeah i mean i guess i just would ask one step further i know we're talking about mass more mass trainings with ocm boces but do we have to do that could we have a training on the book with the authors like that's customized to fm or with the administrator like a discussion led by the authors with our administrative cabinet i mean i'll defer to dr tyson whatever he thinks makes sense but i just i like it to be more action-oriented so the goal with with dr theo harris's plan is the broad training for all boards but then work done within the district within each district so giving the broader training to all the boards together but then each district

166doing work with um within its you know within itself to on different issues i think if we're at a pu at a you know moving on to the next thing marissa you mentioned that and i have also heard that there's a i don't know if the word you said it better than i can but the we want to communicate to the teachers that we have their back in this in the culture out there with parents and speakers to the board we want to say you know with it that teachers you've been doing a great job we have your back and i don't know if that's i think it got when we were talking about district goals that may have gotten left out but that may be something that we could work into a board goal

167that they always know that we're doing this you know to help you i don't know how to work it in or if we want to put it in here but it's something you mentioned and i think it got left off our last discussion well for me it's more about there needs to be something formalized or it needs to be more specific information about you know this is what our teachers do and you know what happens when someone says oh this is you know you're doing something wrong here you know and then also to do we need more training for our teachers and having some discussions related to dei issues when they are covering sensitive material in school is that a need i don't know but that's something i'd like to know if that's you know

168um a support that we can provide you know it's this is a climate where you know i mean folks want cameras in classrooms now so that they can have that level of micromanagement of our educators and i just feel like we haven't been very and and not finding fault with us because this is also very new for all of us but i think we need to really think about what our message is to our faculty about their teaching and how we're going to support them and what do they need from us as far as support and that's something we're having conversations about now i mean as you know we have invested heavily in curriculum maps i mean there's a lot of things that we do and sometimes it's you heard it tonight from one of

169the speakers to spark critical thinking so we're using different documents and texts and sometimes they may be seen as controversial but we're not trying to indoctrinate anybody we're trying to help think big picture and if you don't present sometimes diametrically opposing views and to try to tease out using conflict so there's a an intent behind what we do so i think the trick is is again not to get out ahead of our skis to stick to the curriculum maps and if anybody challenges us um on it we can go back to the curriculum maps and point to the particular lesson or point to the particular objective and how it fits with the state standards that's the safe ground if we start improvising just because we have a passion for that and again get out ahead

170of our skis that's where i think the problem comes in so we may feel a call to action but i think at the same time we want to be true to the investment in the curriculum that we've put together doesn't mean it can't be revised doesn't mean it can't be reviewed going forward in fact as you've heard tonight that's our intent in a lot of areas but at the same time the safe ground is to do what we've been doing and we've been very successful at it for a long time i think to me the the bigger issue and other than you know saying we specifically support this group or this group it's just communication you know as i sit in each of these meetings and listen to comment that we receive that i i'm

171i'm more than happy to hear everybody's entitled to their own opinions and i value their feedback but but i hear some people coming in and saying well you've already done x and you're down this pathway and this is what you're doing and i sit here and say well i haven't been in any meeting where we've discussed what you're telling me we've decided and on the on the proverbial other side we hear people saying i want you to go faster and do more and give us more specifics about what you're doing and and to me my my my biggest takeaway from all of that has been that intentionally or unintentionally we've created a bit of a a vacuum of information where people are filling in to that vacuum what they want to or presume to fill

172into that vacuum but that may or may not be true or accurate and and so to me if we're going to address any type of a board goal in that capacity it is to be more clear and more specific about what we have done and are doing at each step of the process of you know even if it's just no we have not done that we have not addressed this we have not talked about that i'm sorry i know that you think we have but we have not just clarity of communication at each step through the district i think we owe that not just to our faculty but i think we owe that to the community because i think that there is a lot of confusion i think that there's a lot of beliefs that

173are just inaccurate about what we have done or are doing or might do i i mean i sit here when i listen to some of the things that i that we've been told that we've done and i'm just i'm utterly perplexed because i've not been part of those discussions so i just to me the board goal very specifically is to do our very best to communicate as clearly as we can with all stakeholders about what we're doing as we do it if we're doing what anything whatever it is i think that's a good point however i think we need to have a couple of things that we know we're going to be doing right if we're going to make sure a goal of communicating clearly then i think we need to be clear as to

174what we're going to communicate well maybe marissa it's something as simple as and maybe this is this will come out with the dei committee report too but during your president's report just making sure that you're reporting out on our progress towards our board goals and obviously that's a little meta like to report on our goal to be more clear i don't know but but i wouldn't even make it a goal i'd make it just something i don't think it's yeah i think it's a little worthy i think yeah i think it's a principle guiding you know that we should always be trying to do to be as transparent and open as possible right similar to what we're doing with doctor like we've made sure we've pulled out the covert report and putting that on the

175agenda we can make sure that there's always something on the agenda we're reporting very specifically about board goals on there i totally agree with that i wouldn't make it a goal but i would definitely add that as an item on the agenda making sure we do that i mean to me from a communication standpoint we have meetings that are live streamed which i fully support and they need to continue but not everybody has hours to sit and watch them we have meeting minutes that we all know are are in appropriately very generic you really can't glean very much from them about what was or wasn't discussed in the content and the the spirit in which it was offered that that there's something that can be done that's between that that's not reliant on on on

176a reporter for the eagle bulletin summarizing our meeting for the community that that's something that we as an organization could take control of is here is the snapshot version of what we did at the october 10th meeting and here's what we're planning to do next instead of relying on others to do those news summaries for us that may or may again may or may not be accurate may or may not capture the spirit of what we were we're doing i just think there's a better way for us to communicate how well you know what one way to your point then that we can do is we have a i'm gonna hate myself for saying this tomorrow but literally board's eye view column avoids a board's eye view column that goes out i think it's like

177a couple times a year now i certainly am willing to work with community relations there's gonna be a lot of help with this one to do more of those board's eye view columns and i definitely would need a lot of people like you rebecca but i hope to do that but i think it would be a way to get that's in print right that's and we could put on social media we could push those out to people through you know our digital reminders to parents we can push it a lot of different ways and this it is a print um summary but we could do those more often and really push them out because right now we don't they just go into the newsletters and that's where people see them but if we wanted to

178do something more frequently we can certainly have those more prominent on the website and more pushed out through social media and like i said i'm more than happy to do that with with help i mean i think nancy and christine also write draft articles that summarize the meetings so maybe not every meeting but there's there's definitely some really good summaries of what was discussed at certain meetings and maybe that just needs to be more of a focus so if we all agree then perhaps we do have more of a community a third goal that's communications focused where we're having more direct communication to the public more written communication and that can be very smart in that we can say three times a year or four times a year it goes into the board's eye view

179and then we also say that after each meeting our district communications department will post it on the website or you know those can be very measurable but uh marissa you were mentioning how much extra time and yes it i know it's a lot of work it's we're not putting on your shoulder but you you but you tend to um write emails to individual community members when they write to the board but if we have this it may save some time in not having to address each of these individually because it's already been put out there so hopefully that eases the pressure a little bit you do a great job i like what you said mrsa though earlier that would fit what dan is saying too just always have some something on the agenda just a

180few sentences about where we are in our goal or what's happened or what we're involved in now doesn't have to be lengthy so we can work on the language for that as far as the communication pieces from the board what else do we want to do as far as that first one i want to make sure i capture whatever we want to do as far as or continuing our work on that first goal related to dei i mean i think we as a board need to understand what the administration is doing on this and i think there's a lot of work underway and i don't have a great very crystal clear sense of the action steps being taken off or the audit or i know there's been talk about the state would ask us to

181come out with a community task force i don't i don't know where could you maybe tell us where we are with that because i'm just thinking those are things that maybe we want to pull out for the president's report or the superintendent's report just to keep the community and ourselves updated on on what's happening towards these district and board goals certainly we're in the awareness phase now but we can map out in terms of community task force in terms of you know getting community feedback on all of this as we go through again not trying to get the card out before the horse we're still educating ourselves you're right some people have rushed to judgment i mean you never can over communicate but some have already made up their mind as we've seen and i

182just think we need to do our due diligence so that we better understand the issue i'm delighted with the speaker that's coming in in terms of a warm environment and accepting environment in fact you know this individual's background that we have coming in is very similar to what niscus is bringing in for the state level in march so we're not far off the target in terms of starting with the four basic core principles and working our way through that are we waiting on more guidance from the board of regents on specific directives or next steps with this initiative they may augment it i was speaking today with stewardship and i heard the state of ohio withdrew everything so it'll be interesting to see if new york pulls back on everything keeps moving forward and brings

183clarity to it but we may get more guidance we may not so i was just looking at one of my and my ocm boces updates because there was something from superintendent cook about a state diversity equity commission and some work but i can't find it at the moment so um as far as educating ourselves and you know i understand what you're saying dr tais you want to make sure that you guys are all i'm sorry you the administration is is clear as to what the direction is from the state but i guess for me that goal would then be that for each part of the framework that we're getting that we are getting that information and that is part of our regular updates you know where things stand and and quite frankly if we're not

184getting um direction or guidance from the state i think we need to go back and say we need direction and guidance to make sure we're doing this correctly i think we can't be passive and wait for them to give us direction i think we need to make sure we're clarifying as we go along if there any questions so we can certainly go back and flush that one out i mean i think we kind of keep that but then add these bullet items in there about getting the information about what we're supposed to be doing as a board for each one of these steps um what was the other piece um next steps for the framework as far as what we're going to be doing as a district so maybe that's just updating and action items

185related to the framework like where should we be is there a time frame as to how we're supposed to carry this workout is there a time frame for the curriculum audit i mean that they just told us to do a curriculum on it okay when does that do i don't i mean there's someone going to come in and look at it and say you know you did this right i mean i don't get telling someone to do a curriculum audit and there's no scope to it and no um you know here's when it's due and here's what you need to have in it i may have missed this but i know they're in this same you have to do a curriculum audit there's also you should have a committee and we had discussed including all

186stakeholders is that something that there's no more guidance on no no timeline no plan and there are road maps that have been published and i think i've shared those with the board i can share them again but certainly the road maps will delineate things that we should be doing but again there's no but we don't have one for efforts no timeline okay well it seems like a lot of these details we can flush out with the dei committee as well to kind of come up with that plan moving forward so maybe at our next meeting we can take a look at the road maps start there okay any other thoughts on that first goal before we move on and we'll bring those back with language cleaned up for the board in our next meeting okay

187all right so item three point uh i believe it's oh wait still approval of action research proposals is there a motion the board of education of the fayetteville manly central school district hereby approves the 2021-22 action research proposals as presented thank you kelly in a second for mark any discussion all those in favor please indicate i i you want to pose or abstaining next under board development we had talked about any discussion of public comment protocols i know there was some discussion at one of our last meetings and there seemed to be consensus among the board of keeping it to the three minutes it seemed to work everybody knew their assignment today they were very i mean they were very they stayed right under that three minutes and still got their points across so i

188thought that was good is there any need for any further discussion about our board comment protocols i don't think we need to tonight okay you could leave it on there to parking lot and then we'll get more information out about the retreat working item i'm sorry working agenda items see nothing there potential considerations for future meetings oops from there future meeting agendas we do need to make the change for or is it even on here the mental health report is that on here yeah we need to flip-flop that with library media sure we get that out to the community since there is such a big interest in it so people are aware that that's coming up so they can watch that particular meeting uh consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent agenda

189as presented thank you daryl second from sherry all those in favor please indicate i i anyone opposed or abstaining all right so is there a motion to adjourn to executive session for the purpose of discussing two collective collective bargaining issues and the employment history of a particular individual thank you sherry second from jason any discussion although the favor please indicate i anyone opposed or stating all right so we're going to go and exec and have that discussion they're going to come out very quickly for a public session to um for personnel and one more oh and then to approve the um revised welcome statement so that's what will come out for a public session for all right so we're going to move into executive session thank you to those of you who hung in with

190us till the end are you writing to yourself well i write into myself you don't know what i'm writing no i see no check check can you hear me now check check check check jack you