F-M BOE Meeting - Sept 21, 2020

001not yet we are live thank you apologize to those viewing for the meeting being delayed a few minutes call a meeting to order please join me for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god okay next on the agenda is the approval or revision of the agenda for this evening is there a motion to approve the agenda thank you rebecca in a second from sherry any discussion of the region of the agenda and can we just pull 6.03 i just have a quick question on that 6.03 which is the superintendency evaluation procedures and timeline okay we will move that to item 7.01 there are no objections from the board any further revisions okay is there

002a motion to approve the revised agenda thank you jason second from rebecca any further discussion all those in favor please raise your hand indicate i anyone opposed or abstaining next on the agenda is public comment sarah do we have anyone for public comment this evening we do not thank you we are now in item 2.01 report district action plan um dr thais certainly at all of your stations should be the annual report for 2019 and 20. i know you've had a chance to see the draft for that the building principles are with us as they are every year to explain the building action plans that drive off the district action plan the strategic plan that covers three years they will bring you up to date on some of the accomplishments over the past year as

003well as the things that they're still working on going forward so i will turn it over to our building principles uh sharing my screen with you all it was interesting as as we were all getting ready and i saw each of you get ready um i noticed that you had mr josh becker here at your back and call to help you get ready uh with technology i'd just like to uh point out don't get that set up for me thanks um our teachers are doing that every day they often have maybe six state students in front of them and often many more at home and they are navigating technology on top of navigating uh the classroom and the curriculum on a daily basis and so as you can imagine that's quite the heavy lift and

004they're doing really an extraordinary job um so far we've asked a great deal and they have come through and i'm very proud of the great work of my own building at the high school teachers and i know each of my colleagues would say the same about theirs uh this has been really an extraordinary time and our staff has really met that challenge and we're very proud to to call them our colleagues so um we're here to talk to you a little bit about our building goals um you will notice if you compare our goals from 1920 to this year they're pretty much identical and that's because um in the middle of our work we were interrupted our plans were pretty heavy focused on collaborative environments being able to come together to meet and discuss a

005number of items to meet and move forward the district goals focused on the priority areas and of course those specific district goals and so today we're going to talk to you a little bit more about about those and some of us have some updates but primarily we're just looking to expand these not only for this year but also for future years as well and so at the high school i'm going to talk about a couple of areas uh the first is in the teaching and learning priority area in the district goal how would you expand course offerings you have to study learning opportunities that promote student engagement and allow for student voice and choice when our strategic planning committee came together last year over a year ago this was an area of focus for us

006one thing that we really wanted to do was try to help and promote educational opportunities for students that may be on homebound not only for maybe a disciplinary issue mental health medical issues how are we providing education for those students and originally the goal in 1920 was really focused on trying to create an environment where we could bring students to a campus whether it be a high school proper or somewhere within the district to find better ways to provide educational opportunities for students the more we got into it as a group the more we realized we don't have the capacity or the number of students that would need that level of support and so our focus changed in our work to focus on how do we find a better way to communicate amongst all of

007the cohorts all the members to be able to search so we could actually as a group we actually had a committee focused entirely on homebound we created a tool to try to help and support student engagement for students that didn't need homebound and we were just getting ready to pilot that when we ended up leaving uh in march and so our work will continue on that this year and in next in piloting that and looking for ways to improve communication under those circumstances additionally we had a committee focused on the possibility of only offering the five required regents exams for those of you that were not on the board the last time i presented are we talked a great deal about how do we find ways to redefine success for students and families throughout our

008program there are a number of schools downstate who do not offer examples outside of those five and they made those decisions years and years ago and they found ways to create a more robust program and so we were interested in that so we decided we would take notice and start research ultimately in that we contacted schools throughout that region to learn more information and to look within their actual programs looking at their course catalogs their course profiles all the way to help inform our conversation here as to whether or not that was something that we were interested in we will continue that conversation moving forward we're also looking to expand our link crew program our lincoln program is a one-day affair really it's the introduction of our freshman to our uh our to our high

009school um while we had a very different program this year we were able to incorporate a number of of the components of them but living crew actually has a year-long program that we have never initiated so we were looking for ways to bring that whole year-long program to help support students throughout their freshman year and then we're also looking to develop a communication plan to assist eighth graders and specifically their parents to broaden their understanding of what the opportunities were within the high school more information they have the earlier the better prepared they are to make choices not only in the election process we ask you very early on the letter goes home in january of eighth grade uh actually maybe december of eighth grade asking you to start thinking about what it is that

010you want to take in high school and our thoughts were we could do a better job of finding ways to communicate lots of information to make that process easier not only for families but also for students on school environment we're looking to identify and evaluate potential changes to the high school schedule try to support student achievement and their mental health and well-being we started a committee focused entirely on exploring changes in the high school schedule we sent out a survey and surveyed all high school faculty looking for the characteristics that they thought was going to be most beneficial in an academic schedule but also looking at a schedule that will most benefit students socially and emotionally uh what's interesting is is where we instituted a new wellness break if you will within the high school

011this year because of the state that we're in it's that type of situation that will broaden our look at how we examine the high school schedule big items that have come back when you look at the high school schedule have always been a concern about the fact that we don't mandate lunch students are not mandated to take lunch however many high schools have nine or more periods a day where they can operate and be able to take many additional courses uh and so we started that conversation we actually created a survey to go out to students however right at that moment when you're gonna roll that out we ended up going out uh last march and so we're gonna continue that work back not only from students but also from parents and then pushing that

012conversation forward with hopefully some new suggestions about how we look at the high school schedule in addition this was also in line with the start time study i think many of you know the high school has a very very short start to end time we begin at 7.85 we end at 206. that's a very very very tight schedule there's not a lot of room i don't have additional time ultimately within that we're kind of at the bare bones minimum and so in order to make some of these other adjustments the hope was you might be able to be creative in how we look at transportation and maybe start time end time in hopes that it might address some of these pieces so that's still part of the conversation as well a big uh component of

013our program last year was the introduction of a therapy dog we gave you a report last year about the therapy dog program actually provided recommendations to formalize that we introduced you to kiki uh who which was the first well this year we are on we not only have tpd building but we have two additional dogs in high school we have joey and we have charlie uh and so we are very very happy with the expansion of that program um and we have seen great benefit uh as a result of that so we're going to continue to be doing that this is very slow we don't have dogs there five days a week dogs really can't handle being in the building five days a week each dog may be there one day maybe twice but we're

014really excited about the benefits of a therapy dog a service dog in the building expanding wellness day wellness has been a big focus of ours for a number of years as you know we did the big read last year and the focus has has continued uh one of our actually within our departments all of our our faculty have really been focused on on health and wellness through throughout the building but in particular just this year our pe department has really been focusing in on this with all of our students and it's this idea of healthy body healthy mind and there is actually a wellness activity every single wednesday every day every wednesday a student has pe there's a kind of a wellness component to that so we're constantly looking for additional ways to engage our

015students and thoughtfulness and wellness and so we're doing that in some small ways but we're also looking at larger ways you saw that last may with a district-wide well in the state even though we did that virtually and so we are collaborating across the district and finding ways to put wellness at the forefront um we have expanded some opportunities for mental health first aid for staff in particular we're looking to expand that beyond just after for students as well uh and then we're moving into homework as a big component and then a big focus of ours and actually focus the connection back to even the schedule and so we're going to be focusing on looking for ways to collect additional data on homework both the perception of students compare that to faculty and staff and

016then of course families with the hope of being able to develop a succinct philosophy statement when it comes to homework so families truly understand what the focus of and priorities of homework as we move forward we are also kind of connected to that and this goes back to scheduling we're going to institute a time management activity as part of the course selection process this was something i introduced to you last year as well again it's more information to help students in the course selection process to help them understand that with every course selection there's a cost to benefit uh when you fill up your schedule with nothing but ap or super classes and you expect to be able to work or participate lots of extracurricular there's all time there and all of that time um

017will have to be taken from something so trying to develop a process to help students really see big picture and films to see big picture as they're making decisions for themselves um connected back to wellness doing inventories when it comes to stressors and general stress and how students are feeling general well-being checks um have been something that we've really been focusing on for the last couple of years we saw a lot of that last year while we were out and we continued that right from the get-go when students started to come back we are also continuing to review all the mental health and well-being activities offered throughout the building but also throughout the district and again looking to create a new communication kind of pamphlet for parents that highlights what we are doing at the

018high school to support students mental health and wellness again trying to communicate all the different items that are available to students and their families again trying to be an open book open communication to help and with that i'm going to turn it over to our middle school colleagues good evening everyone mrs melissa corbin and i are thrilled to join you this evening to provide an overview of both the eagle hill and wellwood middle school building plans including goals and strategies as reflected in our plans both our goals and strategies encompass multiple years similar to the high school and the elementary schools the building closure in march of 2020 and the focus of reopening schools during an international pandemic has shifted the pace and timeline of the middle school building plans at both middle schools our

019expert teachers have designed and implemented incredible learning opportunities for our students in a challenging context for public education our staff members continue to inspire students support academic emotional and social growth both in our classrooms and in a virtual environment and model educational excellence and progressivism looking towards the future teaching and learning at eagle hill and wellwood middle schools continue to evolve in our design of learning that supports students inquiry and collaboration through interdisciplinary projects including our pac projects in grade 8 english language arts and social studies and our roller coaster builds with detailed physics and engineering descriptions in grade six english language arts mathematics and science our students demonstrate leadership and choice in their learning along with unwavering engagement individual talent and voice as colleagues we continue to examine flexibility in our master schedule and

020now our physical space within cdc and new york state department of health guidelines to create both time and space to continue to promote projects across multiple content areas exploring and expanding opportunities for our students to practice and refine real world problem solving with an authentic audience engages our entire community collegial collaboration to design learning opportunities has shaped flexibility in the way that we group students further our units of study and course offerings such as our 8th grade elective agents of change continue to grow these opportunities have opened our curriculum instruction and assessments to reflect students choice and voice of topics problem identification solution design and assessment of achievement specific to eagle hill middle school we will continue to explore specific models of academic intervention services enrichment and technology instruction planned visits to other middle schools

021in new york state were canceled last spring the demand to change our delivery of instruction that began with the building closures in march necessitated our rapid further engagement in our online learning management system beyond that necessity teachers at eagle hill continue to model collaboration and excel in fostering incredibly strong learning communities within teams across grade levels projects in the humanities focus on civic engagement and community advocacy sharing themes of real world application while designs in mathematics science and technology shared with grade level peers who visit our showcases exemplify all of our students achievement now considering considerations from room occupancy limits to the hybrid or completely online structure of students attendance in school will further guide our investigation of models that most effectively provide academic intervention services and enrichment in whole group and small group designs

022this year our academic intervention models continue to include both integrated support during english language arts and mathematics classes and small group support in english language arts literacy and mathematics labs lastly we will continue to focus on the character strengths of the positivity project health and wellness the current context of educating a global pandemic has demanded that we gather strength including kindness perseverance perspective resiliency and teamwork the impact of multiple recent events during this moment in time leads us to examine our health and wellness as individuals and as a community beginning with a tool for students to create on thursday september 10th our first day of school this year to foster awareness and choice for academic emotional and social support when faced with a challenge to students sharing their character trait for a year-long display of

023our collective strengths here at eagle hill now may be the best and most imperative time to support the development of ourselves support one another with great flexibility and genuinely promote character education and positivity in our community we have been and will continue to be our greatest resource for one another and will continue to intentionally share our successes and our strategies throughout this school year mrs melissa corbin will now provide an overview of wellwood middle school good evening everyone thank you for having us similar to the other buildings while would will wellwood's work will continue with the goals we established last year under the priority area of school environment wellwood continues our work with expanding social emotional learning and support for students we will continue to build on the work that our elementary schools began with

024the second step program last year our school psychologist and counselor began utilizing the second step program with students who they see for counseling groups and will continue to do so this year over the last few years we have brought in at least one outside speaker per year as our staff shared that these assemblies have helped to shape very positive conversations inside and outside of classrooms unfortunately this goal will have to be put on hold this year until we are able to bring in outside speakers again but we are trying to think creatively about how to connect students virtually with others again this year we began the year with john tamino who is the founder of in my father's kitchen he shared his story to inspire our own students to help others our virtual assemblies serve

025to lay the foundation for the work we will do this year to support others in the central new york community last year our counselors explored mentoring programs in surrounding middle schools this year they will move forward with plans to formalize a mentoring program for our students and as you're very familiar wellwood will continue its work with the positivity project our character education committee's goal this year is to increase student recognition for those exhibiting the other people matter and positivity in action mindsets this work will be very important as we all lean on our strengths and on one another to successfully meet the challenges we must face this year as you are all well aware this will be a big year for wellwood with the continued construction the planning and communication associated with a project of

026this size will continue to be at the forefront of our work this year as several of you have seen firsthand our modular classrooms are in full use they are beautiful and truly are an exceptional temporary addition to our learning environment as i hope you have heard the feedback from both our students and staff has been very positive as with any project the transition plan of spaces will continue to be reviewed and evaluated based upon the changing plans with construction as we review each phase of the project we will continue to make decisions that are in the best interest of our students communication will continue to be a focus as well so that we can make sure that all constituents are well informed we are excited about the instructional options that the project rooms will provide

027at the completion of the project our teacher leaders will continue to lead conversations within department meetings to brainstorm how these new project rooms will be utilized and how instructional staff can consider making adjustments instructionally to take advantage of these anticipated locations down the road thank you for your time now i'll turn it over to the elementary good evening thank you for this opportunity to review and share our strategic planning and building goals as my high school and middle school colleagues described we too decided that we would continue with our important goals this year and extend the timelines we met virtually with our building planning teams and we were able to report our successes these goals were developed with the idea of returning to school in a typical pre-coveted setting as spring progressed we needed to

028shift our priorities and many of these important goals have been placed on pause or have simply been reframed to refocus on reopening in a hybrid model the first priority area of teaching and learning we developed a goal two study the benefits and challenges of alternative scheduling options that support differentiated academic growth and inquiry-based instruction given our covet setting we did need to develop alternative schedules for our hybrid and remote learning this summer we were able to develop a three-week special rotations which allows students to have an in-person experience while at school and a wednesday plan for fully remote learners our hybrid plan was developed to allow for synchronous and asynchronous opportunities for all learners this plan has allowed us to think more flexibly and creatively regarding student engagement and completion of learning activities we have

029extended the timeline of this goal and still hope to learn and adopt new ideas for schedules throughout the year the three elementary buildings will continue to collaborate and develop a matrix of challenges and benefits to new schedules in addition we will work on short-term and a long-term proposal we will collect feedback from stakeholders based on adjustments that we made due to our hybrid model and next i'll turn it over to debbie the bones good evening in our next goal area we continue our work to develop opportunities and spaces that support student inquiry and innovation each elementary building had different strategies in place for achieving this goal such as makerspace facilities and or activities wonder wednesdays genius hour and morning clinics of professional development focused on inquiry this year some of these strategies are on pause

030due to the new hybrid model and adjustments to schedules facilities and instruction for example professional development this year is currently organized to focus on supporting teachers with the implementation of the hybrid model including technology and instructional skills and strategies necessary to implement synchronous and asynchronous learning additionally makerspace lessons are on hold as we cannot use shared supplies for project-based learning and makerspace facilities are being used for alternate purposes but even though some of these initiatives are temporarily paused ensuring students have opportunities to think creatively and inquisitively are certainly still an ongoing priority at the elementary level in addition to the excellent instruction provided by our teachers at each of the elementary schools we are continuing to implement this year our wonder wednesday program in which students in all cohorts whether learning in school or remotely

031will have the opportunity to stretch and challenge their thinking social emotional learning and supporting our students mental health are even more important this school year than ever before due to the quarantining in the spring and the current pandemic due to the pandemic our supports may look different but are just as intentional meaningful and necessary at the beginning of the year school counselors school psychologists and our home school liaison are ensuring that all students whether in cohorts a b or c feel connected to their school community and classroom and feel safe and comfortable learning in this new setting we will continue to make database decisions on how best to support students with their own unique personal social and emotional needs we will also continue to utilize our second step program particularly in the primary grades of

032kindergarten and first as we highlight building a foundation of skills such as learning readiness problem solving emotion management and empathy at enders we had hoped to implement the therapy dog program similar to the high school with bowie who was in training prior to the pandemic however when our human schools closed so did puppy school thus at this time we are pushing back the start of the program till either the spring or fall of 2021 until bowie's school reopens we look forward to implementing this important program as soon as possible because certainly more of social emotional support for our students and staff is a top priority and having bowie there to support us would be wonderful i'll now turn the presentation over to johnna johnson from mott road elementary who will speak to you regarding our

033last goal thank you good evening and thank you for having us here tonight our final goal relates to establishing community partnerships that support personal social growth and development this goal to require some bringing together of students in different buildings so we had established a connection with a high school re-established a big sibs program last year trying to establish that partnership between the older students and the younger students for both academics and for the social support in addition we had looked at having some different strategies that included career exploration through genius hour through a career fair and unfortunately that is also placed on hold temporarily we will continue to explore ways to to generate ideas for students in terms of career exploration throughout the year we do plan on continuing with genius hour projects and inquiry

034based projects as well and maintaining those partnerships to further develop those experiences for the students in our buildings so while there are some limited opportunities to bring in those partnerships we are looking to explore those partnerships and doing different ways so again this is a goal that will continue on we were in the midst of expanding these goals in march we had developed a really good relationship and a good start with the high school and we were just in the beginning stages of doing those interest inventories and establishing the partnerships within the community that would relate back to those projects in class so again that wraps up our elementary building goals for this year we really appreciate your support we appreciate all that our teachers and staff are doing to keep our students students academic

035and social emotional growth a top priority and we are very very fortunate to work here with our colleagues this year thank you very much [Applause] thank you very thank you very much to all of our principals um for sharing this information with us are there any questions or comments from the board at this time it's a tremendous amount of work that you're doing especially managing online and in-person learning i would certainly like to thank the administrators for being here tonight and all the work that they've put in much of what you see in the annual report through their guidance and leadership as well as the hard work of the faculty and staff i think gives us reason to be proud in terms of that first annual report which i think showcases a lot that was

036done prior to the pandemic as you heard tonight as we delve into our own district and board goals this was a great status report some things are on pause right now but the whole purpose of a multi-year strategic plan was to be able to go after some very important goals that would extend over a single year so again i'm very proud of the inroads we've made so far i thank the building administrators and the district office administrators in the back for their leadership through this and looking forward to what the future has to hold rebecca go ahead yeah just having the chance to see all of you in person i just want to thank you so much for all of your incredibly hard work over the summer through the fall to get us started in

037this hybrid model and the feedback that i've heard in the community has been overwhelmingly positive we know just just want to thank you all of your teachers all the support staff for everything you're doing just really really grateful other comments with our questions from the board i think we probably would all echo our gratitude and encouragement because it's not over right i unmuted am i not being heard i can hear you okay good thank you all so much we know it's the game has just begun really right and it's a lot ahead of you so best of luck and let us know if we can support you in any way eleanor i also greatly appreciate the longevity that you all bring to the district and with that i feel as if you can all work

038better together and you've remained true and loyal to fm through this entire pandemic um prior to and i'm sure that you will post so we i greatly appreciate the fact that we have that experience between all of you and it makes all our buildings that much stronger and our district that much stronger so thank you uh next on the agenda is the president's report just have a couple items um we will be uh discussing the agenda for the retreat in our october board meeting the second october board meeting to see what the board would like to have on the agenda for that first retreat of the school year student board member that is in progress student elections are being planned at the high school so we should have more information about a student board member

039shortly and then lastly um just my thanks to as we've just given to the principals to our staff and teachers and parents and students for making this a very good start to the school year thank you next on the agenda dr teiss superintendent's report thank you president mims included in your board packet is the superintendent's report under internal operations our policy committee will meet tomorrow to begin our transition to the new york state school board's policy services from the erie 1 boces policy service so we will be revisiting how we are going through the policies to ensure a regular review cycle which was already underway with the erie one policies under community relations our new own covid medical director dr diane montgomery has been working to update our reopening plan language and frequently asked questions

040document to reflect our current practice you will have the opportunity to meet her later this evening virtually but i wanted to let you know that her perspective and input has been invaluable for our entire school district under administration there were some technological glitches early in the school year so i would reach out to those families who were experiencing difficulty and encourage them to call our own help desk at 315-692-1111 software is something typically the computer resource teachers have provided over time so the whole pandemic and the hybrid approach has shifted in our needs in terms of trying to get people cross-trained for both hardware and software support and this would include teaching assistance as well helping the students under non-instructional business operations you may be aware that the school district must now provide food service

041to families uh through the end of the calendar year i'm sure this will be revisited in the future but in lieu of delivering our meals by the transportation department we are using three pickup points where families can gather their meals after ordering them ahead of time you may have noticed that we've pushed this information out to the community via the website and social media under the area of personnel our new special patrol officer brian damon started today peace officer damon is a former psyro and he's syracuse manoa and he will fill in at wellwood and fayetteville elementary campus until the return of the cyro from aleve in early october so i ask you to please join me in welcoming officer brian damon to the fm central uh school district community some members of the community

042are organizing a rally to support our police including the cyros which is scheduled for 11 o'clock in the morning on saturday this saturday september 26th at louis park in manoa and they have asked the district to be represented there as well for the work that the cyros have done both there and at esm under students unfortunately we will be canceling our participation in the spelling bee and geography be as many other districts have done because of the pandemic nevertheless we're still in the process of examining all of our extracurricular activities to see what if any we are able to offer in the year ahead under the area of instruction and given the move of the professional development day from the general election day on november 3rd to earlier in the year i would like to

043announce formally that tuesday november 3rd will be a remote only day for all three cohorts this is because some of our schools are used as polling places for the general election and was one of the reasons that we scheduled the staff development day for that time since it's already an instructional day i will not ask you to take action on this but we will push that information out to the community through the school messenger alert as well as the website under strategic planning construction the wellwood capital project is progressing smoothly in fact members of our own facilities committee participated in a sneak preview on thursday september 10th which included a visit to the new temporary classroom suite at the rear of the building structural steels being erected in the cafeteria kitchen main office moving to

044the lobby areas the masons are installing the brick facade over the vapor barriers and the mechanical electrical and plumbing contractors are working to ensure that the new addition is tied into the existing building utilities and then last but not least under reopening our reopening went very smoothly a big shout out to the administrators faculty and staff for all of their work aside from the vehicular traffic flow issues that have always existed prior to the pandemic the staggered arrival and dismissal times for the students appear to be working well while it was quite a bit of work on everyone's part the students and teachers are finally settling into their routines i received a lot of feedback positive feedback as i'm sure you have on the new school year including our welcoming videos that were crafted by

045the building administrators and the orientation activities for the grade levels that were new to each building and speaking of the positive feedback i think i shared with you over a month ago about the six nearly 600 let's talk inquiries that we had i finally was able to complete all of those responses we are also speaking of communication completing daily uh the required information for the covid19 dashboard at the new york state department of health as i said this has to be submitted daily to the new york state department of health portal so that they can track even students that are being sent out from our isolation rooms that ends my report thank you thank you dr tithes are there any questions from the board for dr tice next on the agenda item 2.04 committee report

046audit is scheduled to meet on the 24th uh community relations we currently do not have a meeting scheduled uh facilities we got a report at our last meeting about your tour you're meeting on the first is there anything new to ads from facilities since that's sort of a hotbed right now no okay i would just echo what dr ty said you know with the there was obviously a lot of talk about the modulars leading into the whole construction process and i will readily admit i was one of the ones on that original fence of how on earth do we do trailer classrooms in central new york and i i i would venture to guess by now that all of the students in that building are jealous of whichever students are assigned to that part of

047that building because they really came out as as just a pure extension of the existing building and you have no sense in there whatsoever of their temporary nature so kudos to how those turned out that is very good to hear uh thank you very much to bill furlong and his team any other questions for dr tice okay um policy committee and they are meeting tomorrow as dr titus just mentioned fm education foundation sherry okay no meaning chat and legislative liaisons rebecca i think you have some information for us i see the proposed resolutions pdf is here you want me to go ahead all right um i we attach the proposed resolutions to this uh meetings agenda at the next meetings agenda we will allot some time so that we can go over them um there

048were around 20 of them this year and uh i really just skimmed through but just to highlight a few that we have discussed that nisba will you know will be discussing and voting on uh number four dealt with pilot agreements um number 14 dealt with election arrangements and which we i thought initially would have something to do with what we've been interested in but it actually is uh evidently one district had a situation where there was a a tremendous wind storm that knocked down electricity and everything disaster that the day of their election so they're looking to uh allow local decisions to be made about how to reschedule with because of events like that um number 15 uh had to do with um parent advocates for a special ed committee on special education meetings um

049technology related to covid uh funding and uh equity were number six and number 17. and then proposed resolution 18 um was to oppose uh mid-year state aid cuts um so those are some that we have discussed and that would be relevant but take a look and and we can discuss on october 3rd at our october 3rd meeting um what our positions will be when actually rebecca will be voting this year so marissa do you want to hear about oh finance second let me go back okay thank you can i can i just ask one question on the legislative while we're on that piece and i know there was dr twist i think it was maybe it was last thursday you made a comment on this in your thursday letter but there were there was some

050information i had forwarded before that on the cares act funding that's being held at the state level that was intended for all of the ppe expenses etc that we've incurred and will continue to incur do we have do you have any more update on that and is there anything more that we should be doing legislatively or lobbying wise to work toward the freeing of that funding to reimburse what we've already spent and to help with what we still need to stop this uh i believe i said uh or i can clarify now we the deadline was extended i think from august 15th to the 31st so we do have our proverbial foot in the door for that we are gathering because some of the buildings did their own ppe purchases in addition to what district

051office was doing so we are pooling that uh those totals together and then last but not least we did a group of superintendents meet uh with congressman john catgo trying to encourage both republicans and democrats to be bipartisan work together to release not only that funding which was stop capture right in albany but a second cares act funding that would go directly to the local municipalities regardless of size of the county which is what our problem was in the first years act we were under a half million where counties like monroe county were over the half million cut off so the money ended up directly there ours ended up being stop gapped in albany to be parcelled out later so our foot's in the door we're putting together everything we need to do to submit

052for that we're keeping our fingers crossed that it wasn't spent already on something else and we're trying to encourage that second karezak bill if they can muster the support for that to be passed thank you and for the second time i forgot about finance that's quite all right can everybody hear me okay perfect i'd like to especially thank bill furlong and his staff for all the hard work they've been doing and to dan's question bill did review at the finance meeting that he does have special account codes where he's tracking all our pp expenses everything that we buy so that we'll be able to convey to legislators how much has been spent so far to date we reviewed the 1920 financial results which came in pretty much in line with bill had uh indicated this

053summer and then along with the audit he'll be able to finalize those numbers but it's pretty much on track with what he had reported previously we discussed the 2021 financial forecast um it's looking like by mid-october when we meet next he'll have a better indication of where we are in the current year with some of our expenses some of our savings and perhaps some of the challenges we're going to look at it by the end of the year and then we did take a look at the 2122 financial outlook and quite frankly everything is going to hinge upon the 20 aid reduction in discussions with bill and discussions with some of my old colleagues there's not a hundred percent clarification on what that aid means because as you may be aware building aid is a

054huge component of the credit and the debt that schools paid to investors so typically in the past that has never been touched because that has huge implications in the credit market so we're trying to get some clarification on that but that unfortunately is an ongoing discussion bill did review the district borrowings which uh have come in at tremendously low rates over the last year obviously because of the economy [Music] and that pretty much wraps it up thank you very much mark okay so that should do it for committee reports next on the agenda item 3.01 is approval may i sorry did i i'm sorry just to go back uh a text message from mr furlong the cares act application was submitted we have not yet received approval uh this was the 170 000 uh k

055that was reduced from our state aid originally if you remember in the figures that he had shared so sorry thank you that's okay i thought i missed something on the agenda that's good news i'm glad bill's on top of it okay all right and 3.01 approval of the minutes is there a motion to approve the minutes of the regular meeting held on monday august 10th 2020 as presented thank you sherry second excuse me from kelly any discussion of those minutes all those in favor please raise your hand indicate i anyone opposed or abstaining and 3.02 approval of the minutes of august 24th special meeting is there a motion of the board of education approve the minutes of a special meeting held on monday august 24th 2020 is presented mark second from barrel any discussion although

056the fair please raise your hand indicate i i anyone opposed or abstaining next i am 3.03 is there a motion at the board of education to prove the minutes of a special meeting held on tuesday september 8th 2020 as presented thank you jason second friend kelly any discussion all those in favor please raise your hand indicate i i a one opposed or abstaining item 3.04 is there a motion uh the board approved the minutes to the special meeting held on monday september 14 2020 as presented thank you sherry second from dan any discussion all those affair please raise your hand indicate i i anyone opposed or abstain stating thank you iron 3.05 is there a motion but the board of education approved the personal actions is recommended by the superintendent and the second from daryl

057all those in favor please raise your hand indicate i i am opposed or abstaining next uh we have a resolution in regards to face covering so i'll read the resolution and then of course we'll have some discussion and dr montgomery is joining us what will be joining us oh there's yours just there okay perfect all right so is there a motion as recommended by the covid19 medical director in accordance with the centers for disease control and onondaga county department of health guidelines the board of education the fayetteville manly school district requires the use of masks by all staff and students while it's school unless a medically conscious country thank you contraindicated b during a designated mass break c during a designated lunch period when eating or d when participating in a sport in which case

058mass usage shall be in compliance with the regulations for that sport and set forth by the new york state sports association and i left out some letters public high school athletic association thank you dan further masmos have two or more layers and be worn over their nose and mouth gators bandanas buffs and masks with vents are prohibited this resolution is affected me immediately with the grace period until october [Music] i know there we go is the new language in there sarah about under the chin i know it review that is up go ahead mouth and chin i'm sorry say that again you're breaking up please i apologize could you please repeat the addition to the resolution regarding masks covering nose mouth and chin and secured under the chin did everyone hear that yeah correct so

059that would be the second line from the bottom where we would add to be and be warned over the nose and mouth to be secured under the chin or unsecured under the chin yes and that is uh from the cdc guidance right it was just we caught that today thank you so the draft um resolution of the board received on wednesday or thursday it went to council and then it went also to dr montgomery for review before coming to the board so that's why you noticed some changes that were made to the draft resolution that you received previously dr montgomery was there anything you wanted to add in regards to the resolution or i mean first off i want to thank you so much for taking on this challenge um to be our covert director

060because that is a huge position that we really needed someone and it's fortunate that we found someone in our community who has had students who attended our school so we very much appreciate you coming aboard the fm family in that capacity you're welcome was there anything that you wanted to speak to in regards to the resolution um i think we needed to add more detail um especially because the cdc is constantly updating their websites and their recommendations as we learn more and more about how to prevent transmission of the coronavirus and also certainly you know a lot of the parents have also um you know as we know they always bring up issues and um bring everything bring certain things to our attention also so a combination of all that really has uh prompted us

061to do that and i think that now that they are prohibiting things like gators we really do need to go ahead and put that in writing so that we are able to um enforce that at school appropriately any questions i think uh kelly and then dan uh first of all thank welcome aboard dr montgomery and thank you so much um so i guess my question is you know because things are changing so much and you know we put forth this resolution now what happens what's the plan in the future you know for keeping and maybe this is you know for both of you dr montgomery and for uh dr tice you know how are we going to continue to keep the parents aware of new developments that might be things we might have to add

062to this or something that might no longer you know maybe is not relevant anymore i just want to make sure that this resolution is not seen as like the end-all be-all final say on this necessarily that's an excellent question um and i actually um sent in several updates to several areas with dr tyson's approval of course to be uh updated on the website regarding a lot of these um issues um so and i do know that people are checking the website and there was a case where you know one or two areas we didn't get a chance to update yet and that was brought up so we have done it today um this issue with the mask will be done once it's approved it's in it's already been um sent kind of on the drawing

063board so to speak so it's ready to be put up once it's been a pr if you know obviously of course with approval um and so we are trying our best to do that now and i'm very involved with that so that i can quickly you know i can translate all that medical issue quickly into how can we present it on the website um so that it's easy to communicate with the parents so do we think that would be not like a just a an update on something you know faqs or like an alert that might go out and say you know hey we've we kind of made a change to this so make sure you go back and check out the faqs i just want to make sure that you know something like this

064is clearly important for making sure that everyone's safe and i just want to make sure that people you know this might i don't know to me it might rise to the level of some sort of alert beyond just changing something on the website so i don't know if you know dr thais if you want to speak yeah we're i'm we're more than happy to uh do that and we wanted to kind of memorialize it by bringing it to the board this evening dr montgomery's referred to some other minor changes we've made because if you remember the plan was a draft anyhow so now the language is actually matching what we're doing if you may recall we were going to use an app originally back before july 31st that families were going to fill out we

065had our medical advisory board indicate that no take the temperatures here that's what we're doing now that's what we pushed out but if you go back to the frequently asked questions dr montgomery has been kind enough to go through to match our current practice to what it should say so that i don't i'm not worried about pushing out because we've advertised that we're taking the temperature screening here it's just a matter of correcting the old language pre you know this sounds like the dinosaurs but pre july 31st you know we're correcting language and again it's changing so frequently this here is pretty major plus the fact even though the cdc and i think mr seidberg had mentioned the research that came out from the duke study the cdc just recently changed the guidance on that

066didn't mention bandanas in there either which the duke study did and so we're really in dr montgomery focusing on the multiply cotton masks that secure under the chin so in accordance with the cdc guidance and that's something we wrestle with dr montgomery and i talk quite frequently because sometimes it's new york state doh is it cdc what's the guidance we're following i mean we just want the most up-to-date and current that's going to protect the children the faculty the staff which i know the board does as well so i think the major ones you're right we'll bring here to memorialize we'll push out whether it's with our school alert system school messenger and but some of the minor ones i do not want to trouble our medical review board or trouble you some of the

067minor things we can just clean up but anything major especially where they've changed the guidance on gators and the question is you know bandanas were silent on we just want to make sure we memorialize it for everywhere yeah so i i just want to build on that a little bit i'll come back to the grace period question i don't want to leave that one we'll come back to that but but um i i appreciate the changes to the language and i think as a policy to be in place in the district it's it's a obviously a necessary policy and it's a good policy and it's not comprehensive i'm just a little bit confused and concerned about why is it coming to us in the form of a resolution because to this point we haven't been

068asked to actually formally approve any of the rules processes or guidelines that we're following and so this is this is the first of just any piece that's come to us and and it's the reason i'm concerned about it coming to us in this form is as you just mentioned as dr montgomery mentioned this changes sometimes multiple times in a day i mean cdc released guidance today they pulled it back and if we have something that's adopted as a formal board resolution then for that to be changed we need to meet again or if it went into policy we obviously have a long stretch of things we'd have to follow there so to me this belongs much more appropriately as just an administrative regulation put it in have it effective announce it but but let's not

069lock it in as a board resolution that ties the district's hands to have to spend time to change something that may need to be changed much faster than that so so i'm i'm definitely concerned about that tying our hands going forward so i'd like to hear your thoughts on that before we talk about the the grace period piece of it and i'm comfortable with that i think that's one of the reasons i pushed it here for that discussion so you're coming across loud and clear i don't know what the feeling is the rest of the board i mean i am fine and very comfortable making decisions isn't a problem uh for me so i'm happy to work with dr montgomery we talk with regularity it's how much the board wants to be involved with that

070so i concur i'm comfortable with that i i i'm sorry well i was just going to say for consistency sake i think that dan's suggestion does make sense and i think you and dr montgomery and the administrative team are really in the thick of these decisions so um i think that does make sense and then in terms of wearing my community relations hat um i agree that either a push out from the building level or maybe just a simple district-wide um shows that we're very proactive making these changes as they make sense to us and will assuage a lot of concerns that parents have that are really following the changes so sounds like that's all happening so thank you so i would support dr tyson dr montgomery you know making the decisions rather than as

071dan suggested having a resolution that might constantly have to be updated can i just ask one thing quickly um what about piece i would add to that is i'm sorry oh i'm sorry i took my year thing out i'm sorry sorry doctor oh don't worry um i just had a question about if we are going to put this forward and uh in a different way um it is quite important for um you know pretty much everything we're doing here so how um i don't wanna how do you bring up the enforcement issue or you know i don't wanna make it sound that harsh but um we obviously have masks to offer students so that's not an issue there but or maybe this is kind of a routine thing that that it can be easily enforced

072otherwise it doesn't have to be a resolution i guess that's my question i am i am comfortable like i said making an administrative regulation i was trying to get the appetite of the board how you much you wanted to be involved i've talked with other faculty and staff members who said well why isn't the board involved why isn't the medical review board the advisory committee called back to make these i think it stays at the administrative level just for the nimbleness of that so there's no argument here i totally agree with that but part of my method to the madness and having it discussed tonight was to decide how involved you all wanted to be if you're comfortable giving that authority to the superintendent and dr montgomery were happy i mean we talked quite frequently

073like i said so that should not be an issue the grace period i want to go back to as well because if you had a chance to read my email today that suggestion came from the administrative cabinet as a whole feeling that the children needed and the families needed that time to transition rebecca carol might actually have had her hand up first sorry no i just wanted i want to agree with all of you uh i'm comfortable with it staying with dr montgomery and dr tice i think dr montgomery might be wondering how do we enforce it i think we go back to our code of conduct correct which dr montgomery might not be aware of so thank you and that was something dr montgomery just so you know we talked with legal counsel about

074so it would fall under insubordination in terms of our progressive discipline policy within the district code of conduct thank you i really had nothing further to add than that okay dan is that your hand up so yeah so just to close the loop on that they we've talked about this you've talked about this a lot dr tess before that i i i think that's the right approach handling it administratively i on some on the components that are substantive and significant more eyes are always better than fewer so if there is a revision to be made to it i would just ask if you if you are able to float that out to us we can put more eyes to that that's part of what led to this one being revised so it it can't hurt

075to always put more eyes and perspectives onto it the second part is this grace period so this this current iteration of the cdc mass guidance um regarding gators and and in two layers actually came out on august 28th so we're already three weeks into that it shouldn't be new to anybody we have an in-school day tomorrow and we have a wednesday i i i since this is not a today's guidance it's a guidance that's been out i would advocate especially since we have masks on hand if people don't have appropriate ones that if we could push this out as an announcement tomorrow effective as early as thursday's in-person day i don't see a reason personally to push it out longer or further past that it's you know it's concerning if we actually have students or

076staff or faculty whatever the case may be coming to school with masks with exhalation vents on them if we have students coming in wearing things that are not at all effective or that could perhaps according to the studies worst in this situation i don't think we should be waiting if we if we have this clear guidance from the cdc and we have it and have had it then i'd like to test the flexibility that that administrative regulation allows i think we should be staying as current as possible and and i don't see a need to leave that amount of time i think then in that case just make sure that you stress that they're as as we know but everyone may not know um uh that there are masks available for anyone who cannot meet

077this guidance right away or however you want to word it but i would really stress that because i think um you know making sure your child has a mask where do you put it where is it you know leaving the home in the morning for a lot of families um you know is is a lot to do and so this change um although very you know important and critical we want to reassure the families that you know it's okay if it takes a little time for them to get another one that they may want from home we have availability to give that reassurance is what i'm saying yeah i agree with that i think my concern and not that i would ever accuse any faculty or staff not being sensitive but you know there's always

078the case of you know how do you mention that to a kid who walks in with an inappropriate mask who maybe didn't know or the family didn't have a chance so you know just you know i just want everyone to be really sensitive to that and how they might handle it with that child to make sure that they did have a mask that was appropriate because i think you know there would probably be kids who would be really embarrassed by that kind of thing and maybe feel like you know even though they they weren't purposefully trying not to follow the rules it's you know to your point getting out of school in the house in the morning and having to remember things like masks even though it's six months in is sometimes that happens so

079um but you know we do have masks as a district and you know parents should should definitely know that you know while obviously this is important and we should be following the guidelines you know the second we know about them that you know we are there to support them as they try to transition large contingency or percentage of our children our understanding is it's pretty limited in terms of there may even be more employees that are using gators and i don't think it was a lack of urgency in the decision it was just being able just for what ms fumarola said not to make any student feel embarrassed or inadequate or i mean it was just a matter of giving enough foreshadowing so i don't think it was because of a lack of urgency for

080making a change i'm not suggesting that it is but i think in summons we're here now so it's we are where we are the guidance is what it is i just i think we should roll it out and have it have it be what's going to be enforced and for bandanas as well even though the cdc didn't for whatever reason change it and i know we say august 28th or july 31st like it's ancient history but that you're right it's just it's changing very frequently and cdc may say one thing and d08 says something totally different okay any additional questions about what is now a administrative recommend uh wreck regarding faith coverings or any questions for dr montgomery while she's here okay well thank you very much oops hello oh i'm sorry i'm looking to

081scream i didn't see your hand up go ahead um so will the language now be changing on the regulation i'm not going to call it a resolution since it really does not belong as a board resolution but in terms of um when it becomes effective i mean i i know we've had the conversation we've gone back and forth but i just want to make sure we come back around you know when it is that we are going to try to enforce the regulations on face coverings i will talk to dr montgomery and talk to the administrative team i again i want to give an opportunity to push this out tomorrow so that families can adjust we have the authority because we have to provide the masks we can ask students to change over even if

082it's a matter of as mr seidberg said cohort b using our provided masks for the last two days of this week but i also think of the plastic bags which they've been in place with uh you know not enforcing for two months i mean i just want to make sure families have time uh that we get this announcement out because i do not want to embarrass anybody as ms fumarole said okay dr can you just update the board your thursday later this week as far as um the updated plan after you have a chance to talk to your cabinet i will and dr montgomery okay great thank you so just the last the last thing just to close on some things that you mentioned and dr montgomery mentioned which was tweaks and updates into the

083frequently asked questions as a parent i read the frequently asked questions when i got added i haven't gone back to them because i haven't known that there's a reason to go back to them so i i would really advocate no matter how small if a change is being made then in some form or format it should get pushed out and there's also the reality that not everybody visits that website and certainly not every day but we and i know we've talked about this before dr tez we know we're pushing every family to go to schoology and to live off of schoology for everything so if this type of information is going to live in a frequently asked questions document or whatever the case may be that should get added into schoology that's the reference place

084that we're sending everybody to so let's put those reference materials where we're sending all of our families to on a daily basis because they're not all going to the website i wonder if it would be helpful to have a last updated um tag for questions maybe that's too labor intensive i'm just trying to think about how people could sort through if if they were scanning again to say oh okay i looked at this in early august now i'm looking in october and they could i don't know or maybe i can leave it to the experts on how you could flag new content new policies yeah we can talk to our communications department if you recall for when the pandemic first hit it was almost most recent information first and then the more archival information was

085buried so yeah and we can absolutely talk about it at the next crc meeting to lend support but i think the idea that updates i mean more minor especially that are safety focused should be flagged somehow some way and and possibly multiple channels okay so if you can update us as far as how that the communication plan as well on your thursday later that would be great thank you and just to let me echo dr montgomery has been invaluable i said it earlier probably before she was on but i've enjoyed our conversations she's also interacted with the athletic director with the nisfa guidance that has come out so we are really trying to move quickly on a lot of this changing information i just needed for my own peace of mind your comfort level because

086staff is looking to you or the medical advisory board and to me there may come a time to bring something to you or to reconvene the medical advisory board i don't think this happens to be the item but when those times come i think it will be important but for this i think we can be lean and mean and move quickly on this thank you for the feedback i believe technically since we had a motion and a second we do need to withdraw the motion to approve the resolution so who made the first on that without you dan rebecca so um then rebecca would you you were throwing your motion i am withdrawing my motion thank you very much okay next on the agenda district goals and board goals so these uh this draft district

087goal and draft board goals are based on our discussion that we had back in i want to say july but i could be wrong um so this is just the language that share and i recalled from that discussion so we are looking for feedback and a little wordsmithing to get that into shape now dr teiss is still working on the focus items prioritizing those and he will bring those back to the board at a later date but for this evening we want the board to look at the district goal and draw and board goal to see if this language reflects what we discussed at our last meeting and i should have said prior to that is there a motion of the board of education hereby approve the district and board goals for 2020-21 thank you

088kelly in a second from sherry now let's have some discussion we can start with the district goal perhaps um one thing that jumped out at me just wordsmithing was um provided an appropriate education consistent with the district high standards i just i don't love appropriate i don't know if you want to say high quality or um you know provided an education even even education consistent with the district's high standards so one of those two but appropriate just feels a little bit out of place to me and then my only other thought was well i guess we want to keep it flexible as the year may change but um we're currently in a hybrid model but i guess it's not a hybrid model for everyone i'm just thinking out loud as to whether we want to

089say whether you're using in-person remote or hybrid i think it's it's fine i agree with you on the uh the word appropriate removing that and rewording that and i think that the in-person remote and hybrid is something that will cover whatever might happen this year so we can keep that yeah i like removing appropriate and just education consistent with our high standards that says what we need to say without the word appropriate any other thoughts on the board the last is just in the the very last piece of it the while ensuring that all student needs are met and in my view should be all student and staff needs there daryl you're saying something as well okay okay so it looks now to we just removed that a word appropriate to provide education consistent with

090the district's high standards and then ensuring that all students and staff needs are met any additional feedback on the district goal okay let's move on to the board draft gold i had a suggestion for the opening sentence after the board will i would like to propose that we said we'll strive to better educate itself because the way it's reading now it's assuming that we've never tried to educate ourselves on race and diversity good point i would add after um wait a minute i would add after um the third line takes action against prejudice and discrimination in all forms i think that's important it's not simply a racial issue it could be discrimination based on sexual orientation gender economics all sorts of things i would just add discrimination prejudice and discrimination in all forms um the

091last line oops examine help of course i would click off of it uh examine how past incidents of racism and discrimination have been handled in the district um so we would have to go that's that suggests going back and like looking through some sort of report of an incident and you know reevaluating what was done and i think more of the intent was to you know make sure we're aware of how of what's happened and but the bigger emphasis on improving as we go forward so i mean because we can re-examine for a long time without making progress so that last line examine how past incidents of race and discrimination have been handled in the district perhaps examine how incidents of racism and discrimination can be or should be handled but looking forward as far

092as how we would handle them thank you great word that right marissa elena i mean i went back and i listened to all our meetings in which we discussed board goals and i'm just curious as to how some of this was put together um some of it as i read it does sound administrative in nature and i'm a little concerned about that make sure that we don't step over that edge um that line excuse me board governance responsibility versus administrative so um some of these things as you just mentioned i'm examining ex uh excuse me where was this how they've been handled in the past we've never had that discussion as a board whether or not that's something we'd like to look at so there are other things that are in here that we've never

093we have not discussed so i just wondered where you came up with the verbiage like if it didn't come from a board meeting where did it come from so these are from notes that were taken and i can't remember sure what no what meaning was this that i know i don't remember what board meeting but it was one that was on youtube right i listened to the whole meeting every meeting where we've had board gold on the agenda i went back and i listened and and that's why i'm asking i just want to make sure that it's a collective sentiment of the board moving forward and and and again i i it this does read a bit administrative to me in certain portions so i just want us all to be comfortable with it before

094we finalize it well i think that's what we're doing this evening is going over the language and the verbiage and making sure that everyone's comfortable with it now i can't remember what meeting these notes were taking it i know it's difficult when when someone's trying to take notes to bring in all the thoughts of everyone who is at the meeting so these are the best notes that we have from that task that being said if there are things in here that we should not be looking at as a board because they are administrative let's identify what those are and let's remove them and if there's any language in here that we are as eclectic or not comfortable with now's the time to take it out um so this wasn't just i didn't write these notes

095quite frankly um but it does sound to me as to reflect what we discussed yeah at previous meetings so i think here we are now let's see what we need to do and change this to make it okay for the board to prove it and i appreciate that marissa and that's why i asked the question because notes are a lot irrelevant we have it live on youtube where you can go back and actually listen to what the actual conversation was your notes can be inaccurate so i just i don't know if anyone else took the time to go back to listen but as i read this things were coming up that were it was as if i was hearing it for the first time so so when i i did exactly what you did is

096i went back to the meetings when marissa and i were given the task to compose these and and to wordsmith them and using exactly what you listened to this is what i heard and this is how i put it together and i gave it to marissa and we both agreed that this is what we remember so in any discussion we're going to have places where we hear things differently so that's why now that they're on paper we can discuss them and come to an agreement about how it should be worded so what particular parts in here oops what particular parts in here elena do you you mentioned the last line which i've mentioned that we change or not motion but i've suggested that we change to examining past incidents but what particularly in here would

097you like to see removed because it's more administrative as far as instead of board work well i think it's perhaps a bigger question of does anyone else feel as if it reads administrative in nature when they read it because if i am the only person that is thinking that when i read it that that's my takeaway then it doesn't matter well it does because some no someone might not know it's important that you share your perspective because it may open someone else to seeing it differently so i don't want you not to share your perspective because you're concerned about being the only one um i'm not concerned about being the only one this is what it's about we want to make sure we're inclusive i'll go to um rebecca kelly and dan i don't know

098whose hand was up first yeah so i mean i think some thoughts i have on eleanor's point or why it's echoing right now um i'm sorry no that's fine so in terms of a long-term district goal devising a strategic plan detailing how we'll confront racism to me we can't do it as a board by ourselves in a vacuum and the same thing with restorative justice practices and discipline we can certainly work to set policy but we absolutely couldn't do that without being informed by administration and working in a partnership with the administrative administration and administrators so i guess maybe what's missing here as a broader piece is the idea that i know at least we talked about at crc which is a task force to look at these issues on a community level i don't

099think we as a board i think we can start the work to educate ourselves and think about next steps and how to set a framework but i think ultimately the conversations and the work have to be broader than just our board what do other people think about that so kelly than dan and daryl um yeah i mean i think i was reading and maybe again we just need to wordsmith us a little i was reading it as the board will educate itself with a i think kind of in anticipation of a long-term district goal district goal not board goal so i think i was looking at like our places to kind of start on this journey at the board level and kind of you know continue to educate ourselves so that when it does come

100time to start put strategy putting strategies in place um for example a task force or whatever else we had come up with um that you know the the long goal is at least in terms of our board goal is that the district would take this on and obviously we would be a part of that as appropriate um but that you know we anticipate that this is something that the district would be focused on going forward so i don't know if that's just you know wordsmithing the you know i don't know how i put it with an eye towards a long term goal or we just you know i guess we just take that out because i think it's pretty you know it makes sense that we're going to start talking about this as a board

101and then eventually it's going to be something that the district is going to take on so whether we leave that in or not we can make it more broad that way but um i mean essentially what we've talked about was that we would be educating ourselves this year on what the issues are and um you know we'd be starting to do that work and i think having a retreat that's led by a dei expert is you know a great thing for us to do and i think board retreat time well spent um in my opinion so i'm okay with that so if you know if people feel like it's too it's getting too much into the weeds about talking about district goals and it might get confusing then you know i'm happy to you know

102maybe we take that piece out but you know if other people have other you know things that are concerning them that it's too detailed or it's out of the purview of the board i definitely you know would love to hear that because you know i only i only know what i have in my in my own head so kelly were you suggesting to remove the part after our own biases and to turn that into something more broad so it would end with participate in a retreat led by a dei expert to explore our own biases period and then i think it was rebecca who said i mentioned the task force so that the rest of that would somehow be encompassed in the idea of or some language about it participation in a district-wide task force

103is that where you were seeing the board independent role being up until biases um i mean i think i was looking at the the first sentence where it talks about the with a long-term district goal i think if it i i was just speaking to maybe that was just confusing things by talking about a district goal within a board goal um but certainly you know we could certainly stop it at the biases and you know although i don't think there's anything wrong with kind of starting to have conversations about how we want to move maybe how we want to move forward with the district you know maybe not necessarily on the how and what of how we handle racism in the future but how we come up with a plan to to do this work

104in the future so i don't know i'm not probably giving any good language to add to this but i guess i'm looking at maybe the first sentence and the last sentence maybe just making the you know the board goal a little more more self-focused on our own education and and how we can work with the district in the future so i i don't want to repeat what's been said my my concern was that specific provision of that where we've crossed over from board goal to district goal of having a long-term district goal devising a strategic plan detailing how fm will do x y or z that's that's district work that's not board work so my suggestion is to dial it back to a much broader much more general goal that would read something to the

105effect of the board will strive to better educate itself about diversity equity and inclusion the impact of discrimination in the fayetteville manly school district and engage in a board retreat to evaluate how i haven't finished typing how to engage in acts and just keep it very generalized in that manner it's still all-encompassing but it's not a board goal to do district work to that point um as we know we still have dr tyson still working on prioritizing the focus items so from that list there may be some items that are generated from our discussion or that rise to the top from our discussion at the retreat and that maybe a task force is something that is part of that list eventually i think daryl did you have your hand up next anybody over here then

106i'll get elena and then back oh i would i would certainly echo i thought kelly put it very well i agree with dan as a board i don't think it's our place to look at how things have been done in the past or how things should be done differently that's but to educate ourselves i think is very definitely our role the first sentence is an area that did bother me when we referred to a long-term district goal so i won't go back to that but also the second paragraph the board will examine ways the district can promote a healthy climate when addressing student discipline again and how restorative justice practices can be incorporated into policy if we're incorporating anything into policy i do agree that that's our role but i don't know that it's necessarily

107our responsibility to examine ways that this district can promote a healthy climate i just feel as if we have administrators within our buildings that do that work so that is another sentence that does leave me feeling a little uneasy okay so i'm sorry so i finished typing my sentence you've really gotten to me in mid-sentence before so let me just read this if i may just as a proposal obviously to be talked about more the board will strive to better educate itself about diversity equity inclusion and the impact of discrimination in the fayetteville manly school district and engage in a board retreat to evaluate how the board may assist the district administration and further embracing acceptance and action against prejudice and discrimination so not doing the district's work but evaluating how we can assist the

108administration if and when applicable i like that except for the word assist i would use the word support because we should be we should be supporting them um but i like it yeah that's the only thing i would change in what you just read i do think we could get um we've talked a bit back and forth about this restorative um justice practices but there could be a home i mean it doesn't really fit in particularly with this goal but this goal is really focusing on diversity and equity although i think i mean i know i've brought that up myriad times over the years or maybe i think my point is i think that's again that's a strategy and that's one thing to look at but i feel like it falls under the purview of

109what dan just said so in our discussions and you know that would i would imagine that would be one of the things that craig or the administrators might you know want to pursue and in whatever way that policy or the quote of conduct would take that on that that's certainly something we could be educated about at a minimum so i'm okay with that not being in our board goal see i i had looked at this from the start from when we talked about it back in that july 20th meeting to now is i i'm not conflating these two i'm looking at these as two totally separate distinct goals one not necessarily having anything to do with the other so i agree with you dan that's how i looked at it can you read that back

110one more time someday i'll get used to this hold on just two seconds i had one typo i gotta fix here the board will strive to better educate itself about diversity equity inclusion and the impact of discrimination in the fayetteville manly school district and engaged in a board retreat to evaluate how the board may support the district administration in further embracing acceptance and action against prejudice and discrimination i think that's a big goal it's it's a it's a very ambitious goal but it's broad that it incorporates everything that we've discussed discussing without getting into the specifics and without getting into the what i think is administrative work and then we can continue this goal in another year as well we don't have to make it a one-year goal go ahead rebecca yeah i mean i

111guess just two two things i'm thinking about one is um we've talked about hearing from community members and we will be hearing from the community and i don't know that i hear that in that goal in terms of hearing so i i did have it i i i had that under the umbrella engage in a board retreat to evaluate how the board may support the administration and i would say we'll talk about it and we may decide at our retreat that engaging in a community task force or whatever may be a thing that we can do to help support i so i had in my mind that it's under that umbrella because i mean definitely community task force but i guess one step back from that is hearing from these community members that have reached

112out to us this year and i know we've had robust discussions about who's the right person who's the right group to hear that is it a committee is it the administration is it a full board but i i would like to see some language in there that speaks to the fact that we're listening to our community and not just educating ourselves in a bubble um so i'll think about the language in a minute and then the other thing is just is this is someone can someone mute back because i'm echoing myself sorry um just is that goal a better edu i mean i guess i i think it is um i just want to make sure it translates into action and i think people are looking to us to move forward with not just educating

113ourselves and thinking about the best plans but what are we going to do and it may very well not be realistic to make those decisions in the next six to nine months but i'm just challenging us is this aggressive enough in terms of a clear action that will rise out of educating and talking about it well can we put like a timeline for ourselves like by you know we'll have i don't know two board retreats and by the you know end of the second retreat we have to have some sort of plan to move something forward whether it be a task force i mean we don't have to say that out but we have to have some sort of strategy by the end of the year of what this is going to look like or

114what the board needs to you know do on within the purview of the board of course well one thing i think that is going to be very important is that so we have three or two groups and one individual who who we've invited to come to speak to the board but they have only outside information i mean that in terms of not being up to date as far as the practices and procedures that we have incorporated into the district at this time so i think um that's important that those groups and dr um doctor you might pronounce that correctly doctor um have an opportunity to connect with our uh administrative team right they've already met with dr tais one group met with doctor tys and i but to meet with um some of our assistant

115superintendents so they can hear what is actually occurring because they they've expressed a lot of different um opinions and they've had some experiences but some of those were in the past and some of them are not based on what our current practices are and i think there should be there needs to be an understanding of how we are operating and why things are done in some cases i know that it was very helpful for the current student group when they met with dr tyson and i they had a list of issues concerns and we went through those and they were we were able to explain to them okay this is why you know we we do recruit uh we're not we don't recruit but here's why we we don't have that many um persons of

116color you know it's a global issue and explaining to them how that works i think that was very helpful to them so i think in terms of action items i think before we get to that i think we need to educate our community as far as what we are doing in sm currently um to make sure that when they're expressing themselves about what they'd like to see us do that they understand what we are currently at as a district and to back up from there educating ourselves about what we currently do right looking at you know we're striking the line about past practices and looking at not only what what has not gone well but what is going well in this realm um so i i think i just want to make sure that that

117fostering that dialogue between the district and our community stakeholders is wrapped into this goal it may not be us as a board that's having those conversations like you said it might be the administration um but that we are making that connection happen and that because there's a lot of um urgency for that to happen this year and i just feel like it's our duty to to connect the dots so i don't know if this is necessarily part of the goal i do hear what you're saying because i don't want the community to think that this is fluff and that you know we're not actually going to take action i'm just not sure what we should be taking action on yet so to your point that is part of educating ourselves and the community so i

118think that perhaps a good timeline to this is to have because these groups are working on presentations now to have them connect with the administrative team share those presentations have that dialogue about what is occurring the district what their concerns are and then have them present to the district about their experiences so we do get that community input and then we have the retreat and from that retreat maybe we can have some we could have some action items come out of that retreat as to what we feel like we should do because now we've heard from the community the community has been educated and they've and we've also um had some education about this issue um i think it'll be important um that when we look at we not only educating this group but making

119sure information is shared broadly so they have an opportunity to meet with administrators within i think we talked about this at crc a bit publicizing talking about that sharing information on our website about you know here's what's happening at fm in regards to this issue because you're correct this is something that the community really wants to see us actually taking action on and having some um proactive work done so overall i like what the where we've landed with the wording i but i do think we should add i'm struggling with as to whether those are just like bullets under the goal so um that we will develop action items after hearing from the community and administration or how we want to incorporate the action item piece into this one question i have is are we

120looking to have a series of retreats are we talking about one retreat dan's wording has won [Music] obviously we're going to have at least one but i think some of this is work that you know our presentations and information that we get at board meetings because we want to be transparent we want the community to see the work that we're doing so yes we do have retreats that are informational for board members but i think we should consider how we're going to incorporate some of this into board meetings going forward so um i think there should be a follow-up retreat but i do think there should be some work incorporated into our board meetings for the remainder of the year as well we generally do that with all of our with board goals anyway we

121usually have updates and discussion at board meetings so my suggestion might be to expand it to just say engage in a board retreat but engage in a board retreat and a series of discussions at board meetings on this issue just so it's not just circumscribed to one meeting and evaluating from that one meeting because we all know that that's just not realistic um and then i was just thinking maybe at the end of the sentence um well i'm not sure i mean i don't know what other people think about more of a stronger action piece coming out of this i mean i think this is always or at least always this has been this is just an issue when you make goals is you know how how do we know we are successful so how

122do we measure them and i think when you you know i understand like we want to make this kind of vague because we're you know heading into something where we don't really know what the outcomes are going to be at least you know in terms of the board and certainly in terms of the district so you know what makes what can we measure against to know that we did what we said we were going to do and i i don't know i'm struggling with how to word that into something that makes sense other than you know what we've done in the past with like having you know budget retreats or whatever i mean that was kind of our goal there there were more outputs but that was what we agreed to in terms of measuring

123that we would be you know have a bunch of um retreats or or information sessions to talk about the budget so maybe we were this similar to that that board goal from last was it last year i think i think there we go i think part of yours is just the limitation to the the retreat i think we could resolve by just tweaking that part of the language to say and engage in a board retreat and other discussions to evaluate how the board may support etc just just adding that piece and i i think speaks to this is this is not a one meeting and done this is an ongoing continual piece i did email that first draft all of you i'll send that revision too i'll i'll email it to you right now craig

124do you have thoughts on sort of how to marry the action piece to if we need something more tangible in terms of something more measurable make it a truly a smart goal a couple of things i mean the beauty of this is is you wrestle with this year's goals it's realizing that a year from now next year's goals will be here soon enough so you get ambitious and you want to solve the world's problems but it has to begin with a first step so i would encourage you on keeping it manageable for that first year and then think of it as a multi-year goal of which you will then do something this time next year and the year after and so forth that being said the conversations that you have had about what are the

125outcomes are key i've always been trained on what's the plan what's the implementation and what's the outcome so i think part of that manageability is knowing that there's a grandiose long-range goal and maybe this year is that awareness piece in setting up the stakeholder feedback what are the ways the task force might be one of many ways community survey we might do focus groups just like we did for the start times i just you know can't don't get me wrong i think the task force would be important but it might just be one piece of the puzzle so maybe this first year is the awareness and the outcomes are ways in which we will educate ourselves as mr seidberg put together here with his wording but also helping to define is it a task force

126is it a community survey is it does that make sense i just think so don't make it as ambitious would be my advice and then within that mindset have those action items those implementations based on the outcomes of getting that task force ready to mobilize administering a community survey and maybe we bring an outside consultant who's done this before you know that can help us i don't know if that helps or hurts but i just yeah those would be my two pieces of advice i think that's helpful the last time we had a board diversity training we did bring in a professor um chapin uh from um syracuse university but it was a very brief meeting and there wasn't follow-up that was about five years ago i believe so i i definitely appreciate your points

127that you made dr thais um dan i'm looking at the draft that you sent us and there's one piece i didn't see and maybe the board didn't agree with me so the last part in action against prejudice and discrimination in all forms [Music] so i just had added so against prejudice and discrimination in all forms because i think that a lot of times when people or districts organizations are looking at diversity and equity goals or issues they're looking at purely from a racial perspective and it's more than a racial perspective it should be inclusive of gender sexual identity um economics it could be there's a lot of issues involved in that so in all forms i'm sorry so the only reason i didn't put it into this draft was the original draft spoke specifically about

128systemic racism this more generic version did not so in terms of just prejudice and discrimination it is by its nature not confined to any specific type because we haven't referenced any specific type in there and we can we can add it but i think it's i think it becomes redundant the way it was revised but it's easy enough to add back if that's what everybody would like to see what are everyone's thoughts on that again i just i have heard and i feel that sometimes there are groups that when they look at statements like that they don't feel included i know it does seem broad but i just think sometimes that people think that it's about race instead of more broad you know broadly i think it's a couple of sentences or a couple of

129words to add to it but if that's going to make us more welcoming or feel more welcoming to a lot of people let's just add a couple words i don't have a problem with adding those few words at the end fine by me so do we have an agreement regarding the language that we're going to use the board will strive to better better educate itself about diversity equity inclusion and the impact of discrimination in the fayetteville manly school district and engage in a board retreat and other discussions to evaluate how the board may support the district administration further embracing acceptance and action against prejudice and discrimination all forms now i really can't see anybody because i take my glasses off sorry they're all blur i think i know everybody's sitting though all right uh that

130was a some very good work in a short amount of time to find to fine-tune those uh goals so i think we have a district goal and a board goal and just to immoralize a district goal can someone read that back with the changes we i don't think we made very many changes to that one dan you're a fast typer do you have that one oh my god district will provide a safe and for faithful staff and faculty in which students are provided consistent with the district whether using in-person remote or hybrid learning models all guidelines for the and you have the draft board goal on your email with the couple of uh words added at the end there thank you thank you sarah very much did you decide to put the what you know

131what are we doing with the second one yes that's what i was going to say so are we looking at a second board goal then are you referring to restorative justice practices dan that i think that whole piece because we've talked about for several years now taking a look at a variety of different student discipline matters and restorative justice and i think it's time to at least again begin those discussions that's been parked as a upcoming action for a long time and i i think i'm and i'm fine with it the way that it's worded that we'll examine ways that the if we changed anything it would be the board will examine ways that the board can support the district in promoting and and leave the rest of it exactly as is this is a

132good time to do that since we're transitioning our policies we can look at some of the tri-state districts policies and israel policies and other school districts that use particularly restorative justice practices to see what work we may want to do in that regards and not to put anything on anyone's plate but if we do adopt that as a goal perhaps it's something that policy can work on and report back to the board about the research do the research and report back to the board about different taxes that they found that we may wish to incorporate into our policy so that would read uh the board will examine ways to support the district and what was the other part so i had the board will examine ways the board can support the administration in promoting a

133healthy climate when addressing student discipline and how restorative justice practices can be incorporated into policy under code of conduct is everyone okay with that there's a second okay so we've got two board goals and a district goal and we had a motion to approve the district goals and board goals and the second we've had some wonderful discussion all those in favor please raise your hand indicate i i anyone opposed or staying i'm so excited that the wordsmith only took one board meeting i just didn't know what to do [Music] can can i just while we're on this topic i know you said we're going to talk about specifics of the agenda for the retreat when we get there as this discussion takes place and as we evaluate this it's it's very easy as hard as

134it is to hear it's very easy to hear the list of here's all the things that are bad but we also know that this district has taken many many positive steps to address many of these issues even if they haven't addressed all of them because i don't think we're in a world where we can address and eliminate all of them so i think it would be important at this retreat not just for us and not just a moderator to be there but but if we're going to educate ourselves about this i would think it's equally appropriate for all of us to be educated about all of the things that the district has undertaken and whichever administrators are most appropriate and applicable to be part of that for that education piece i think that's very important

135for for us to have any meaningful discussion i agree dan that's what i meant earlier when i said it was important or part of what i was saying that the these groups should meet with the administrators and then we all should get the benefit of what's happening in our district that started with the memo that we received from jeff gordon um discussing the work that's been done or where we are as far as employment so yeah definitely and we've had our retreats with administrators where they've spoken to these different issues so yes that's definitely the intention that we because we have done a lot in the district and there's a lot of great work going on in the district in regards to diversity it's not um negative negative there's a lot of positive things that

136are happening okay um where are my board development cut nothing there um well working agenda items i think we can just move one off of there because we've found a place for it uh future board of education meetings we've made a few changes there as far as topics we will get another doodle out for a retreat date i missed dates to remember when we had things to go to all right moving on to consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent agenda as presented thank you kelly seger from daryl all those in favor please raise your hand indicate i i am a publisher of staining all right now we have item 7.01 which is the superintendent evaluation procedures and timeline then you have some questions yeah so i was just trying to understand

137what the purpose of this was so it's it's labeled policy 1000 exhibit d but this is not we have a policy 1000 exhibit d and the contents of that is what's now in the second column of this document so are we just trying to put together a timeline so that we know or so important officers know what what what we're trying to do this year because it it looked to me like here we're trying to adopt a new or revised exhibit d and i that's not really obviously the process by which to do that so i just i want to understand what this is and why this is this is just approving the timeline for the superintendent's evaluation process for this year there are some dates that are not included in here because we'll um

138look at our calendars as we get closer to may to put those in here but this is just approving the dates for the superintendent evaluation process for the year so we're not changing any policy this is just a timeline for the evaluation process so this isn't going anywhere this is strictly the our internal timeline nothing more than that yes i'm not sure where where would it go i mean well i know certain things had to be filed by september 10th which was the process which is the actual exhibit t which so so i just i that's why i'm saying i don't i don't know what it is this is our timeline and we would expect to get different things to get these items done for the superintendent evaluation process okay so then i i just

139think this exhibit d needs to come off the top of the title of this because this is not exhibit d to policy 1000. okay we can remove that uh heading from it and replace that with timeline for completion of superintendent evaluation process and then lastly there was just one piece on here which was number four which the actual exhibit d talks about what needs to take place during april and then this is on here as taking place may 3rd to 11th oh good catch we need to change that date so we need to move things up that piece actually should go that should go with april try april's evaluation i think that will go where it says april 20th or 20th or 30th yeah there we go self-evaluation so we can we can move that

140up we can move the item that's marked may 3rd through 11th number four during april the superintendent please complete the self-evaluation we can move that up to the week of april 20th through the 30th okay any other things on the timeline that we need to change all right so is there a motion that the board of education approve the proposed superintendent evaluation timeline as presented thank you sherry second from rebecca any further discussion was the sayer please raise your hand indicate i i am opposed or abstaining okay so next on the agenda is a proposed executive session for the purpose of discussing the employment history of a particular person is there a motion to adjourn to executive session for that purpose thank you rebecca a second from jason in a discussion although the favor please

141raise your hand indicate i i and when opposed or stating all right so we'll take a short break so that we can get off the live feed and we can clear the room so we can have our executive session discussion thank you